i'm still fermenting...

a pickle is a fermented cucumber...

...and also is what I am in right now. I have had some trouble in the past few weeks deciding what topic to choose from the two that I had originally thought of. Both are fascinating to me and both have a direct correlation with my life and interests. So this week I started doing preliminary research on 'tutto due' as they would say in Italian and realized the potential problems with studying social dance. While the 'on the ground' research would undoubtedly yield an abundance of information, the preliminary research has proved extremely difficult. I have been able to find a variety of different dance clubs, but no information pointing to dance as the universal language. Therefore, were I to follow this track, most of the research would have to be done in Berlin. The following is one of the sources that I found that may help point me in the right direction:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1984889,00.html

My research on drug and alcohol abuse has been much more more fruitful than the research on social dancing. In terms of acquiring hard data to support my fieldwork in Berlin, this seems to be the easier route. However, while studying social dance presents problems in the preliminary research, studying alcohol and drugs seems to present problems in the actual fieldwork aspect. The following links offer some pretty solid information on the quality and quantity of teenage drinking in Berlin.

http://www.deutsche-welle.com/dw/article/0,2144,2473172,00.html
http://www.goethe.de/ges/soz/dos/jug/sjf/en1787039.htm
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,474906,00.html
http://www.expatica.com/de/articles/news/Smoking_-cannabis_use-down-among-German-youth_-but-drinking-up-.html

So now I am left with the internal fermented cucumber of what topic to pick between the two. I was thinking about drawing cards, putting them behind my back and switching them around. That isn't going to work. Now that I have this written down, I am going to sleep on it and revisit it in the morning.

what do i want to think about for the next 6 months...

It's a big question, right? Research topics are usually given out by an instructor about 2 weeks before the final paper or project is due, so devoting such an extended period of time on a project demands a serious consideration of what I really want to spend my time focusing on. I knew going into the application process for Berlin that I wanted to focus on either youth culture or the arts; nothing has changed in that regard. Now, though, I am struggling to figure out a way that I can incorporate both of this topics into one, with the larger focus on youth culture and maybe the way that the youth of Berlin has used art as an expression of their satisfaction/dissatisfaction with life in Europe.

POTENTIAL TOPICS
1. The way that the youth in Berlin have used/not used drugs and alcohol. Do they use it in the same way that Americans do? Is there a sober community of young people in Berlin? How do they view the use of drugs and alcohol? Is there an obvious juxtaposition between counter-culture young people and 'mainstream' young people?
2. The mechanism of dance and music to act as a universal language. Does dance bring young people together in a way that transcends other boundaries (class, race, gender, etc?)
3. The inherited history of the conflict between East and West Berlin. Are the reverberations of separation still felt? Have the boundaries been broken down both physically and metaphorically between young people living in East/West Berlin?

don't think...

...just do it. God, what a concept, right? Throughout my performance career, especially in dance, the most deeply connected work I have done has been when I stop thinking about what I am doing, what other people are thinking, the WAY that I HAVE to say the line so that I can drive it home for the audience, and learned that trusting my deep creative instincts and focusing on the feelings that are driving my performance makes for a much more compelling performance. Most recently, salsa dancing has driven this point home for me; I am not allowed to think. Someone else thinks for me. It drives my mind INSANE. But after a good dance, after being deeply connected with another human being for 5 minutes without thought and literally through the feeling of a connection, pushing and pulling in the fingertips, words never do justice to the sensations in my body. And not only do I focus on feeling throughout the dance, but the music and the motion of the bodies create a story that words would never. And my computer is going to die in 60 seconds, but more on this later

the ghosts in the closet

The most interesting part about the Ghosts of Berlin reading this week was the use of architecture and its destruction as a means of creating a new present and closing the door of memory onto the past. Previously, I have learned of the Nazi regime through personal diaries, such as that of Anne Frank, and learning about the impact of the regime on the people through both acutualized and proposed architecture provided a new angle that I hadn't previously thought of. It is an interesting and surprisingly accurate supposition that the buildings we are surrounded by shape us just as much as we shape the buildings through our interactions with them. Another part of the book that struck me was the use of monuments after the Nazi regime in an effort to both shut the door on the past while remembering it at the same time. It seems as though Berliners are caught in a constant juxtaposition between wishing to remember and wishing to forget and learning how to reconcile both. This might be a gross oversimplification or over generalization, but it seems pertinent to both Ghosts of Berlin and what we have learned so far in the seminar

monuments, monumental moments

Pike Place Market is a living, breathing monument. Not only do visiting tourists list Pike Place on the "if you miss it, you've missed Seattle" list, but also, people who have never been to Seattle have heard about it, can talk about the flying fish or the fresh produce. For me, Pike Place is a place where I go get my groceries on the weekend; the novelty has worn off and even though I still love the atmosphere and the excitement in the market, it has become slightly ordinary. It's funny, the more I get used to things, the less exciting they seem to be.

In thinking about Berlin in this context, maybe the young people there have seen their own monuments so many times that at some point, like our own, they become invisible. Maybe the monuments become ghosts of themselves to the very people that they are trying to represent. For example, I remember the first time that I ever saw the Pantheon. I was stumbling along after a long night of dancing, turned a corner, and there it was, completely unexpected and like nothing I had ever seen before. I sat down and looked at it in awe, unable to move both because of my sore feet and my mind being completely taken aback by the beauty of the building. I wonder, then, if the Italians respond to the building the same way. Do people who have lived in Rome all their life get rendered motionless when they see it? What about the people who work in the same square. My point with all of this is that familiarity can turn monuments into ghosts for those for whom they serve the most.

P.S. It was my birthday on Tuesday. I have officially joined the Big Kids Club. Most monumental moment in my memory so far this year. My feet are hurting again and maybe I will walk to Pike Place today and see if I can find something extraordinary (or at least bring some freshness back to my grocery shopping).

phersu...

...means "mask" in Etruscan. I always find that the first time that I meet a new group of people, I attempt to determine what my role will be in our interactions. Will I be the girl constantly cracking jokes and trying to make people laugh? Will I be aloof and quiet and try to fit in the best that I can? Will I be the "smart" girl, the "wild" girl, the slightly hyperactive or overachieving girl? Being an actress, but also being a human being, all of these personas are an integral part of who I am, coming together in the perfect mathematical proportion that makes up the real "me". Having a deep understanding of who I am has allowed me to alter this proportion when it is necessary, but I try to keep out of it as much as possible. Changing myself has never ended with favorable results in my life.
This being said, the exercise presented last Thursday gave me an opportunity to avoid the mess of creating a "me" in relation to the group, and allowed me to give the real "me" to the group in a way that was especially challenging. The montage exercise reminded me of one of my first days at the Stella Adler School of Drama; we were to get in front of a camera and share some of the most influential moments of our lives. Some students said barely anything, others bared deep, dark secrets that brought them to tears. In creating art relating to the process I have gone through with the death of my father, I felt extremely vulnerable and exposed in a way that I normally reserve for interactions with close friends and family. However, I believe that in order for me to truly connect with any art form, be it dance, drama, poetry, or art, that the more vulnerable and exposed I feel, the greater the reward. I am not sure if my montage elicited any deep feelings from my fellow classmates, but I know that the internal experience was profound and very fulfilling, however difficult it seemed initially.
I am pleased that I avoided putting on my "phersu", "persona", "mask", whatever you want to call it, for both the sake my sanity and the sanity of the group; putting on the mask of character works great on stage but not so well in interpersonal relationships.