I am writing this entry from Italy, as I decided to meet up with a friend and travel there for a bit after my Israel adventure. It's been crazy busy, full of amazing things to see....and I am currently sans computer (UGH...I'll save that for another entry)....so it's been hard to write. But I must some up the feelings of goodbyes and partings that were so surreal and sad during my last couple days on Kibbutz Gaaton.
The show was excellent, and slightly insane It was almost two hours of high-energy physicality, and it was exhausting. I can't imagine what it was like to perform in even more pieces...because as I wrote before, I wasn't dancing quite as much as I wished (I never got to perform the "mattresses" which was too bad. But I learned a lot from working on it up until the very end. I know that you can fight for something that you really want, and maybe things still won't change. Maybe the casting is set, or maybe the mildly injured people keep on dancing so that the understudies never have a chance. But it meant something to understand that the meaning behind a dance lies not in whom it's performed for, but in the performer them self. A friend told me that "Every run is a performance, and every performance is just another run." That's such a great way to think about it, and it helped me to make the most of all of my pieces.) I truly enjoyed every moment of performing....Sharon Vaisvaser's piece, which I admit I had grown really tired of, I was able to find meaning in, in the moment. Dori's floor work piece, which was the most fun, where I found smiling was easy. All of the KCDC rep, from the "Send in the Clowns" gestural and internal, to the very physical sections from Naked City and others. I really truly enjoyed dancing the section from Matz Ek's Gizelle, in which we were able to use some acting skills and character/story development.
The goodbyes to my friends were incredibly difficult and emotional. I grew very close with a good few of my classmates. We danced, lived, ate, laughed and cried together, for a whole five months, and now it feels truly surreal to be gone. I wrote this last week, right after parting...
"I just left the kibbutz..Left the green trees of so many varieties, the incredibly bright stars, the view of Yechiam Fortress...Mika's inspirational speeches, dancing so hard I can't breathe, hearing friends laugh over Skype, giggling at the most random moments, tea nights, going to the cafe--half to enjoy delicious coffee--half to flirt with [one of the guys who works there], journeying to Tel Aviv to be inspired by Batsheva, and the waves, and the white sand...even grocery-shopping adventures to Nahariya. All of this I will miss, and though I left it all behind me in a physical sense, it will always be here, a part of me now."
If any of you read this entry, thank you for making my experience complete. I could not have gotten through MASA without you, and if I could have, it would not have been worth it. To my teachers, you are amazing, inspiring, and taught me to know dance's place in my heart and in the world again. Shalom, until the next adventure....L'hitraot!
