Christmas, workshops and teachers’ dicks

24th. Got back on the 8th with the whole 15 extra-kilos adventure.

Then had the first ‘what you see and what you hear ’ workshop meeting, last Sunday, on the 13th. Great exercise, and also very interesting to see peoples’ different realities and flashes of life. As kostea told me- and I also was thinkin bout that intuitively, the focus is not on the extraordinary, not on the unusual/ this-would-make-a-good-movie things, but on unfolding and looking at our lives and what are they made of. And another interesting thing- smth that andra said- that at first when thinkin about what was she doing last week, the first thought was: “nothing”. The good old “ce ai mai facut?” “nimic”/”chiar nimic”/”bai, nimic” that I encounter so frequently here. and also, related to what graham said when I told him bout this workshop- it is an alternative to the main media sources of news- the media news that are always, but always, hysterical – whether if it’s good news of bad news, it’s always smth that has to be hysterical- a catastrophe, or a over-enthusiastically attitude towards smth that happened. Shet. And that keeps u constantly over-excited, not bein aware of the things in your life, the actual specific things you have around you, because “they don’t matter”. it’s always something else that matters, and that is not here, but somewhere far away, keepin you miserable, frustrated and helpless.

So that was the workshop, first taster session.

Last week- from Wednesday to Sunday, Eugene Buica’s workshop, acting and personal obstacles. One of the great exercises we did was a media deprivation one- which means that for 5 days we didn’t consume/connect with any of the media sources/products/anything that was released to be consumed by the public. No books, no music, no movies, no internet. Shet. Just sit and look at your ghosts. It is a bit troubling, but also makes you realize how easy it is to run away from your own thoughts, the most uncomfortable ones, by listening to your favorite music/watchin a movie/doing some internet surfing, as always. Great great focus and connection to the present, which is smth that constantly appears in my life lately (because I am interested in it?). Learning how to look at and listen to the person in front of you, and how to let him/her see you as well. How to change and to let yourself be changed by your partner. And another great thing, hallelujah, about the performance and the performer as the person who is telling a story, and not as the one who tries to live profound and divine emotions on stage in order to make the audience also feel emotion and all that. Just tell the fuckin story. Eugene link . He has a great attention and works so beautiful that you wish it wouldn’t end.

In the countryside now. I decided to post fragments of “pedagogy of the oppressed” while I re-read it, as I took it with me, together with the watchmen book. Coz people don’t know it and it makes me wanna share it even from the introduction to the introduction where a guy named richrd shaull resumes it. Strange this impulse you have when there’s something that you like so much, that you wanna share it, it’s impossible to experience it alone.

Also workin on a post about tiina’s collaborative work with her hairdresser and her optician.
Had a very interesting discussion with Eugene about the relationship between teachers and students here. He seemed really amazed when we told him that many young students fuck their teachers here/or wouldn’t hesitate if necessary, because they are desperate and they want to make it in life, and many teachers take advantage of their position and try to teach the young students what’s the deal in the arts business, meaning that sometimes, why not, you have to suck a dick or 2. The thing that made me think was actually that Eugene’s genuine amazement made me realize that our attitude towards this was also sort of – “these things happen”, sort of tolerating something that shouldn’t be tolerated in any way.

I am also amazed when I hear that a role model like ion besoiu asks young girls ce parare au despre pula, or that a role model and a teacher like puiu serban puts his hands all over the young students’ body tellin them that’s the deal in showbiz. But what makes me even more amazed is that these young girls are so blocked of fear and shame that they don’t even react, they just let it happen because that’s how things are. When the truth is that this is nothing else but rape, psychological and sometimes even physical rape. And people go to prison for that.

This talk sort of made us realize that the parable with the elephant cub is quite true - when the elephant is just a baby, they tie him with a rope to the tree. And when the elephant grows up and is taller than the tree, it still doesn’t move away from the tree even if it could pluck it out in no time.