the history
had the best day i’ve had in a while for too many reasons.
we had a great training at avp by someone from the audre lorde project. it was only a two hour meeting, but i got triggered nonetheless, as i often do. part of it was sharing a personal experience i’d had years ago that was extremely unpleasant and then discussing a case that happened that was similar to mine but had escalated.
in trying to figure out how different systems could have repsonded (criminal “justice”, restorative justice, transformative justice), i had a lot of trouble. the whole situation just made me very sick and very angry.
one of the rad things about alp is they do a lot of work outside the system. really awesome organization.
i’d been having a bit of difficulty with improv since starting at avp; sometimes either performing or watching shows i’d still be in this mindset of thinking about what we learned and discussing violence and oppression and how it has affected the lives of my friends and i, and the lives of friends i have yet to meet. it was hard because i didn’t find that much to be funny. but on saturday, and then also last night while performing i found i was able to somehow take it with me but use it for the scenes.
i honestly don’t remember the one last night too well (i was a bit intoxicated - which happens so rarely that i don’t remember the last time i was drunk, let alone on stage after having a few drinks), but it felt great. i took a physical cue i learned from the living theater workshop and from there it just WENT. the idea that your body moves immediately in relation to who else is on stage.
although the scene wasn’t violent in itself it alluded to a history of violence (the act, not the movie), something i myself had experienced, and it felt so good in some way to deal with it. trying to understand my actions, make sense of it all, trying to move on. it felt easy. sometimes that’s one of the beauties of improv and acting, being able to be more intimate and honest with a complete stranger than you are with those closest to you.
