100% Aventura

Hello everyone!

"Adventure Faces"

A couple days ago, Vanessa and I decided we wanted an adventure. So, in talking to our good friend Luis who is a guide at one of the canopy zip-line tours, we got ourselves booked for a reservation at 100% Aventura yesterday morning. Before we left, we made certain promises to some of our friends. Dario made me promise 1) to do the Tarzan swing and 2) to not die. Michelle made us both promise that we would participate in and enjoy all 100% of the adventure. 80% or 90% would not do, but we were also not to go past 100% because we might die. Vanessa and I thought we could comply with all of these promises.

"Nice and harnessed up!"

We arrived at Aventure and found Luis behind the desk at reception. From this moment on, most people in our tour group thought we were creepy tourists trying to be friends with the tour guide because he kept pretending like he didn't know us. We thought it was clearly a joke; the rest of the group did not. We signed our lives away and got nice and harnessed up for the adventure. Before we walked out to the first baby zip-line, Luis walked by and said, "Good luck! You're going to need it," before promptly disappearing into the wilderness. I forgot to mention earlier that Luis is more monkey than human, so you never know when he's going to appear out of the darkness or a tree or something. That's why this job is perfect for him. At any rate, we did the two baby zip-lines and as we approached the third platform, guess who was there waiting for us! Our little monkey, Luis. This was when our reputation as creepy tourists escalated exponentially. When I got to the front of the line, I was joking around saying, "Oh hey! What's your name?" to which he responded, "Uh... Pablito!" A few of the other guides heard this, thought that we didn't know each other, and found this exchange rather amusing. Likewise, most of the other tourists were under the same impression as the other guides. Sarcasm and banter FAIL. Then, when Vanessa got to the front of the line, Luis started fumbling with her safety cable and harness saying, "Oh, sorry. It's my first day. I think this goes here?" as he attached her safety cable to his belt loop. Of course, this is a total lie since he has been working there almost four years, but the rest of the tour group behind Vanessa got more than a little ervous after that!

The Tarzan Swing Platform

The tour was absolutely amazing. As I have said in various posts prior to this one, Monteverde is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Everything is so green and lush, and when viewing the landscape from hundreds of meters above the ground you can see for miles. Sometimes, however, it is easy to get caught up in the beauty around you and forget that you are speeding through the forest on a cable and that you have to brake yourself. I am guilty of this, and one of the guides had to give me a hand (or an entire arm) at the end of one particularly fast cable. It didn't help that the gloves I was wearing were about four sizes too big, leaving the ends of the fingers to get tangled in the harness and cables. So, by the third or fourth cable I had already broken some promises; I had had about 110% of the adventure. By the end of the tour, that number was upped to about 120%. The last thing they have you do is the Tarzan swing in which you stand at the end of a very high hanging bridge, get attached to a single bungee cord on the front of your harness, and jump off. I wasn't scared at all to do this; it was absolutely not the first time I have looked over an edge thinking to myself, "I'm about to jump off this very high point, and I have no idea how the landing is going to happen." However, I did not expect my neck to snap backwards at the first pull of the bungee cord. Don't get me wrong, it was a great thrill, and I'd do it again, but I was in a little too much pain that afternoon and the next day!

See? Cute picture! Thanks, Judgey Tourist!

The tour was topped off by us meeting up with Luis on our walk back up to reception, confusing more tourists as he gave us huge hugs and kisses on the cheek, and solidifying our creepy reputation by asking another tourist to take our picture with him. But todo valió la pena because it's a really cute picture and I had a great time!

I'm choosing to leave out the details of my work days this past week because it's not worth ranting about on a blog. That's way too 2002 for me.

I think I'll post one more before I leave tomorrow morning. Can't wait to see those of you who are reading from Texas in just a few days!

Love,
Erin

Don't Feed the Plants!

Hey y'all!

"Don't Feed the Plants!"

So, the time has come (the walrus said)! We have finished our run of La Tiendita de los Horrores, and it was a complete success! Thursday was our opening night, and considering the dress rehearsal we had earlier that afternoon, we were completely shocked at the outcome. Our dress rehearsal ended at 5:00, and as a staff, we were still pretty worried about a lot of things in the show. But we accepted it and reminded ourselves that the organization's mission is not necessarily the final product of the musical. However, between 5:00 and our opening at 7:00, it seemed like our cast had about two extra weeks of rehearsal. I don't know how they did it, but it was incredible! We didn't even really give them notes. We just gave them food and a couple hours of rest. I think the biggest factor was that our opening night was standing room only. It was a huge confidence boost for the kids to know that so many people in this town were supporting them and appreciating what they love to do. This summer has taught me that kids and teenagers really do need to hear that their teachers, mentors, and family members support them.

Our sound system!

The rest of our shows were equally as wonderful. Alberto, our super-step-grandfather-volunteer, managed to get us a sound system for the show, a task I had been working on for over a week. However, being an extremely respected member of this community has its perks, whereas being a 19-year-old gringa doesn't exactly bring about the same clout. Nevertheless, we got the sound system and it helped our show immensely, so in the end, that's all that really matters. Hopefully one day I will also be a respected member of this community so that accomplishing these tasks will be a bit easier for me. Having this sound system meant that I was on sound board for all the shows. I had never run sound before, but since we only had 3-4 inputs at any given time, it wasn't that difficult. And that way I got to sit in the back of the audience and watch every show! Not a bad trade-off considering all the other interns had to be backstage doing set and costume changes.

The amazing cast of La Tiendita de los Horrores!

Another rather exciting aspect of the shows this year was the talk backs we had after each performance. We always had at least a few people stay after the show to have a little charla (chat) with our cast and staff, and some really great things came out of it. Throughout the rehearsal process we have been talking to the kids about the themes of the show and how they relate to their lives. One thing that kept coming up was that just like in Skid Row in Little Shop of Horrors, there's not a lot for teenagers to do but sit around and do nothing. This, of course, led to talks about underage drinking and drug use among teenagers, but it also led us to discuss what these young adults want to have available to them in Monteverde. The cast, completely unprovoked by the staff, came up with the idea of having a performing arts group where they could come on a weekly basis and be part of an acting group or a dance group just to give off some steam and do something productive with their time. The kids brought these ideas up to some of the parents and members of the community who stayed after the shows for talk backs, and everyone was completely supportive of the idea. They are planning to form a committee to draft a plan and go to the municipality to try and get funding and a location for it. This is really great  news for me because now I can see just how much interest there is in the community for something like my community arts center. And I am so fortunate that Rachel, one of our volunteers, is staying here until December not only to learn Spanish, but also to continue working for Far Corners on a weekly basis. She is going to be able to lay the groundwork for what I want to do in a couple of years when I am out of school. That way, by the time I get here, there will be a bit of a precedent for this idea and the kids will already be jazzed about it! Another exciting thing on the center's front took place last week, but I never blogged about it.

There was a professional dance company out of la Universidad de Costa Rica that came through Monteverde  last week. They were really awesome contemporary dancers and gave a workshop to my kids the morning of their performance. I took the workshop as well, and it was really fun! So that night Vanessa, Michelle, Dario, Luis, and I stayed after rehearsal for the dance show. A bunch of the kids also came a bit later to see what these dancers were all about. The show was really wonderful, but what I didn't know was that the theme of their national tour was spreading the performing arts throughout Costa Rica! They did a video presentation that showed clips from their different workshops they have been doing for the past month and some of the dancers talking about why it is so important for young people to participate in the arts. So, after the show, Dario and I went and talked to the director. I told her very briefly what we want to do here in Monteverde, and she was so supportive. She gave me her card and told me that she could help us apply for grants through UCR and that she was planning on coming back here in October to give a production workshop. Since I won't be here, Dario told me he'd keep his eyes open for this workshop and take lots of notes for me!

Everything this summer seems to be falling into place with my bigger picture. Everyone seems so supportive of what our goals are for FCCMT, and it's amazing how many people are willing to help.

So thank you all for reading about my adventures and my passion this summer. To those of you who have e-mailed me, I really appreciate your feedback and support. It really does mean the world to the volunteers here to know that we have support back at home in the States.

This may or may not be my last post for the summer. If anything it will probably be the last one directly relating to Far Corners because now that the show is done, we're really just striking the space and making it ready for the next group who wants to use it. I have some adventures planned for the rest of the week, so maybe I'll make a post or two about those with lots of pictures!

But for now, thanks for reading!

Erin

"Yeah, that's what a spiral is."

Hey y'all!


The last couple of days have been absolutely insane, and I can't wait to tell you about them!

Wednesday was a relatively good day. We had a run-through of Act II that went pretty well with a few fumbles, but I definitely left feeling confident about my choreography. Unfortunately, the director did not feel the same way and this resulted in quite a bit of tension between him and the cast and him and the rest of the staff. Consequently, our staff meeting post-rehearsal was very uncomfortable. Everyone was on edge and a couple people got very defensive very quickly. I never want to have a staff meeting like that ever again. The problem with our staff this year is a lack of communication, which we have talked about at length with very little progress in actually resolving the issue. I think this is one of the things that sometimes has to give as the staff grows larger and larger. All communication failures aside, our show is going to be amazing. In fact, I was just talking to Heynor, the barista at our favorite coffee joint, about the show. He told me he heard really good things about it last year and that he would definitely be joining us this year. I replied with, "Yeah, I was here last year, too, and this year's show is going to be even better!"

getting ready to sing an acoustic version of "Go Your Own Way"

Wednesday night was our weekly ritual of Common Cup Jam Sessions. This is literally the highlight of our week. After our frustrating staff meeting, I walked down the hill with Vanessa, Michelle, Rachel, Alvaro, and Andrey to Common Cup where we met up with Emily, Antonio, and Paul. We pushed all the tables in the cafe together and jammed out for about two hours. We've gotten to know Heynor and Ken, the owner, really well these past couple of months, so getting to jam with them and play great music is a really fun experience. After expending all of our energy singing and playing various instruments, we needed food. Luckily, there was one restaurant open in town at 10 PM on a Wednesday night - Natcha's Pizza! Which is actually no longer called Natcha's, but its name is not prominently displayed anywhere on the building, so we continue to refer to it as Natcha's. We bought a ton of pizza and ate it outside before parting ways to get some rest.

On Thursday we had a run-through of Act I, and I was overjoyed. We had spent a lot of the day working different sections of dances in the first act, and the effort really paid off. The kids did an amazing job. I smiled during Skid Row for the first time since we began rehearsing it! Everyone had so much positive energy and was totally invested in his or her character. This show is really starting to come to life. I can't wait till the production stops being our baby and goes into the hands of the kids. That's when the real magic always happens. For Oliver! I don't think that happened till opening night. This year with Little Shop of Horrors, however, I think that moment is going to come very soon. I'm waiting in anticipation. We'll see how our full show run-through goes this afternoon!

As for Thursday night, as far as I'm concerned, it still hasn't ended and it is 9:08 AM on Friday morning. After our staff meeting (which was much more constructive and pleasant than the previous one) we all went separate ways for dinner and then Vanessa, Michelle, and I along with some of our randomly acquired volunteers (Katie, Paul, Rachel, Emily) and cast member Antonio made our way back to the venue to keep working on plant puppet construction. Vanessa and I (mostly I...) sewed the trunk of the plant, which is about 6 feet tall, together by hand, stabilized the leaves we cut out of the fabric with wire, painted highlights on the leaves, and painted veins over all the leaves and the entire trunk of the plant. It's essentially finished with the exception of maybe another hour's worth of painting. Meanwhile, the rest of the group worked on the fourth and final plant. They constructed the skeleton of the top of the pod out of bamboo that Fiona's dad brought in by tying Boy Scout knots around each joint with the strongest string you've ever seen. Once that was finished, they took all the leaves and twigs that we stripped from the bamboo reeds and wove them into the skeleton so that the full shape could be realized. In the smaller puppets, Michelle used cotton batting to make the pod look nice and soft and fleshy, but since there's probably not enough batting in the town of Monteverde to cover this giant pod, we decided to be resourceful and environmentally friendly by using every part of the bamboo tree. It's basically like the Native Americans using every part of the buffalo.

While I'm playing up our productivity (and we were VERY productive!), we must remember that this all took place in the middle of the night at the end of a long week working with teenagers. Things got a little loopy. We started a quote wall which hopefully I will retrieve some samples from for your entertainment in my next post, and the sensibility of our speech exponentially declined as time passed. I believe that's what they call an inverse relationship in math. But I really can't talk. I haven't taken math since my senior year in high school. At around 5:30 AM we decided to call it quits. By then the only survivors were Michelle, Vanessa, Katie, Paul, and myself. So, obviously, we decided to walk up the terrible hill to Cerro Plano (almost to our venue from last year - REALLY FAR!) to the best view in town to watch the sunrise. Then the sun rose behind us and we missed it because there was a mountain in the way. And clouds. Welcome to the Cloud Forest. Either way it was a gorgeous view and after some of the clouds rolled along we could see the gulf. In Spanish there is a phrase that people commonly use to describe something they really like: "me encanta." Literally, this translates to "it enchants me." Well, literally speaking, me encanta Monteverde.

Keep following!

Love,
Erin

Closed for Renovation

Hey y'all!

Much like Mushnik's Skid Row Florists in Act I, Scene III of Little Shop of Horrors, we are currently Closed for Renovation! Our beautifully empty and large downstairs space is in the process of being transformed into a functioning theater as we speak. There is a crew of workers painting the walls and floors (hopefully removing any concrete dust!), mounting piping on the ceiling to create a light plot, and lining the walls with sheets of Styrofoam to deaden the horrible echo in our cavernous space. This means that hopefully by Tuesday Manolo and Alberto, two parent volunteers who are building our set for us, will be able to get into the space and start construction. Shortly thereafter, Alvaro should be able to get in and start painting the set with a small crew to transform the space into Skid Row and Mushniks' shop. So much will be happening in the next week to make this show a reality, and I cannot wait to see the results. It's times like these, however, that make me wish I had more of a background in technical theater. I want to be more useful in these very practical and essential areas of theater, especially with a non-profit such as FCCMT, but I lack that specific skill set. But hey, I can hang lights and roll marley like you wouldn't believe!

As of today, the show opens in 11 days. Every time I say this I have a slight heart attack, but yesterday Dario reminded me of something very true and comforting - all of my choreography is taught and most of it has been cleaned! I think last year with Oliver! we had such a big cast and so many production numbers that I was more concerned about actually getting the show finished and on its feet, but this year since we have a smaller cast and the dancing is more divided among the different characters, I have the luxury of being concerned about the execution of the choreography. It also helps that we generally have an older cast this year. The kids are able to pay more attention to detail and physicalize more complicated movements. I have also enjoyed this creative process as a choreographer more than last year because of the above reasons as well as the fact that I have a greater knowledge of the dance styles of this era than I did of those of Oliver!

the staff enjoying coffee at Don Juan's!

Enough about the show--today the majority of the staff had a great bonding day! We got up this morning and met up to go down to Don Juan Coffee Tour, Dario's uncle's company that he works for. His family owns a local coffee plantation and Dario works as a tour guide there. Last year he took Katherine and me on an informal tour with just the three of us, but today he took Vanessa, Michelle, Scott, Fabian, Sophia, Scott, and I along with four other tourists we didn't know on a real tour. It was so much fun! It's always interesting seeing your friends in different roles. I had never met Tour Guide Dario before. He's quite witty, charming, and unexpectedly knowledgeable about the coffee industry. The tour lasted about an hour and a half and then we spent about an hour hanging out at the cafe there drinking coffee and eating arroz con leche. After the tour, all of us except Dario (he had to keep working) went out to lunch and had some staff bonding time. It's really nice to take the day off and spend it with your co-workers in a more relaxed environment. Overall today has been a great day, and we still have a Cabaret rehearsal in our futures to put the cherry on top!

Keep following!

Love,
Erin

Relax, Sweetheart! It'll be easier.

Hey y'all!

While in the play Little Shop of Horrors, the quote, "Relax, Sweetheart. It'll be easier," is a pretty scandalous innuendo, when taken out of this context it really does apply to my last couple of days.

Tuesday I was feeling very stressed out. My body, mind, and spirit all felt weak from my illness and from the medications I have been taking. I went home in a daze, feeling very indifferent. I wasn't satisfied, I wasn't unsatisfied, I was just going along with the motions. Yesterday, Wednesday, however, was much better! I was still feeling a little wobbly from all my meds, but I was able to focus more and felt a bit stronger. I had more energy teaching, and I think the kids fed off of my energy pretty well. We also did a run-through of Act I yesterday evening which went much better than our last one. La Tiendita de los Horrores is finally starting to feel like a real show! The choreography is looking better and the continuity of the show is coming together. The kids are starting to pick up cues faster, although this still needs some work, and everyone is beginning to understand the order of events of the show. Last night's run-through made me really optimistic for the show!

After the run-through and a staff meeting, most of the staff (Lisa and Adrienne for a bit, Vanessa, Michelle, Rachel, Alvaro, Dario, and myself) went to Common Cup, our favorite coffee shop, for their after-hours jam session that occurs every Wednesday. Michelle brought her ukelele and sang a few of her original songs, and there were 3 guitarists as well as a guy with a harmonica. Plus the rest of us joined in on old classics like Blackbird by the Beatles, American Pie, and To Make You Feel My Love. It was just the relaxing evening I needed with friends. We're definitely going to make this a weekly tradition with the staff!

Among all the other great things that happened yesterday at rehearsal, we also had a full cast/staff discussion of the themes of the show and how they relate to our global community as well as the Monteverde community. This discussion took a turn to the subject of adolescents here in Monteverde not really having a place to hang out and just be teenagers. There are activities for younger kids and activities for adults, but there's not really a center for teenagers. Antonio, one of the students who is a cross-over between student and friend for me, was leading this discussion, and it ended up turning towards the, "What if we had a teen theater group here?" discussion. Lisa, Rachel, and I couldn't stop smiling. Michelle leaned her head on my shoulder almost tearing up with joy, and Vanessa even looked a little proud. When (not if, when) we get this community arts center on its feet, we'll have students who are passionate. This will happen.

Keep following! Thanks for your support, even if I don't know about it!

Love,
Erin

Catching Up

Hey y'all!


So, in my last post I whined about having choreographers' block, which is still very much true. However, I have figured out that it really doesn't matter; I'm almost completely done choreographing this show! In two weeks I have choreographed and taught every big dance number in this show--I have never worked so fast or diligently in my life! I'm really proud of myself and of the kids for keeping up with me. Sometimes I get frustrated because they forget things when we do run-throughs, but they really have learned a lot in a very short period of time. And we still have three weeks to get everything the way I want it! Of course I still have some choreographic work to do on one or two smaller, less involved numbers, and some of my big pieces don't have endings (or in the case of the Finale, a beginning...), but the bulk of the choreography is finished, taught, and in many cases, on its way to being cleaned. YAY!

walking to the staff meeting after lunch!

On Thursday we had a pretty calm day as far as work goes, which was nice for three reasons: 1) I wasn't yelling at kids and counting to 8 an ungodly number of times, 2) I got to spend my morning hanging out with Dario, and 3) we met up with Michelle, Vanessa, Rachel (our newest addition to the staff), and Alvaro for lunch! Dario and I met up in the morning with the intention of doing work, but after talking it over we realized that there actually wasn't much we could do to accomplish our goals that morning since certain businesses decided not to be open during their posted hours. Thanks, Monteverde and Tico Time. So, instead of working, we hung out in Common Cup, drank coffee, and exchanged music. After a couple of hours of that, we went to the center of Santa Elena for Cosecha's (an incredible fruit smoothie stand in town - great improvement!) with everyone else. After that we went up to the space for a staff meeting and a run-through of some mostly-finished scenes. Things are getting done fast, but we're starting to run out of time!

Happy Birthday, Alvaro!

Saturday was Alvaro's 18th birthday! Friday night he came out with us girls so we could celebrate with him and on Friday we got the whole cast to sing happy birthday to him. He's pretty shy, so it's hard to tell if it made him happy or incredibly uncomfortable. Michelle also had the idea to make him a card signed by the entire staff and to have all of us draw him pictures. This was a bit of a joke since he's an incredible artist and the rest of us, well, aren't, but I think he appreciated the gesture!

Michelle and Vanessa - my visitors when I was sick!

Even though everything has been going pretty well with the show, I have been sick lately, which isn't so much fun. Turns out I've been having an asthma attack for two weeks, plus the mold from the rain and dust from the performance space is making everything worse. As a result, Lisa wouldn't let me work today. So, I spent the day watching musicals in my room. Not a bad way to spend a sick day, but I would have much rather been in rehearsal with my staff and kids. Sophia took over my dance rehearsals today and apparently really worked on getting everything clean, which is so great. It's a really good thing I have an assistant choreographer this year!

Scott and Dario are down in San Jose for today and tomorrow getting us the hook-up with stage lights. Hopefully they'll come back more knowledgeable and with more resources than when they left!

Keep following :)

Erin

This I just added for fun - Dario (Seymour) and Adri (Audrey) in costume! 

Like life, choreography is hard.

Hey y'all!

Since last week, not a whole lot has changed. The kids are continuing to pick up choreography very quickly, and I have been able to really start cleaning some of the numbers already. I’ve also been sitting in on Scott and Lisa’s rehearsals, which both seem to be going well from a third party perspective. Our “coro especial” sounds great on the harmonies, and Scott’s blocking is really inventive. Monday we had a run-through of Act 1, Scene 1 which was a disaster, but now we know what we need to work on. The kids had never sang and danced at the same time before this rehearsal, so needless to say, not a whole lot of singing or dancing happened during either of the production numbers that happen at the beginning of the show. However, from now on we can work on doing both at the same time. I’m only afraid that once they start dancing they will lose their harmonies, but hopefully that won’t happen!

The biggest problem I’ve been facing lately actually has nothing to do with the kids. I’m having choreographer’s block. This happens to me every time I choreograph a show. The first few numbers come out great and diverse, but after the first three or four, I feel like everything starts to look the same. I try really hard to stick with the era of the show for the choreography because it’s just more fun and the music accompanies it better, but now I feel like I’ve used up all of my 1950’s-60’s doo-wop movement. I’m going to try and do more research on different female vocal groups of that style from the era like The Supremes and The Shangri-la’s to get some more inspiration, but as of right now, it’s a bit of a struggly process. Vanessa would tell me, “Life is hard.” I will amend this statement slightly: “Choreography is hard.”

Thanks for following!

Erin