Monthly Open Circle, Company Meeting and Performance Team Rehearsal

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday June 5, 2010 – Monthly Open Circle, Company Meeting and Performance Team Rehearsal

Thirteen in the Open Circle this morning, plus me on my feet and Frank working the periphery. One first-timer, who plugged into the way the circle works very quickly. A number of regular Open Circlers, the House Team, but only three players from the Performance Team. With the experiential center of gravity at the beginner/intermediate level, this shifted to a more standard beginner’s circle, working on basic circulation skills. This struck me as something of a missed opportunity, as the circle felt as though it was perpetually right on the edge of really going somewhere, but never quite had the momentum to make the leap. A few more experienced players would have made a big difference.

Nevertheless, very good work. For the first half we worked with basic “any note of your choice” circulation exercises as well as some circulated scale/arpeggio work. For the second half it felt to me as though something a little more musical was called for, so I divided the circle into 2 halves, and we developed a simple form in which one group would play a gentle pulsing rhythmic form on a basic chord while the other group improvised in circulation. Roles reversed every 8 bars. This really began to get going after a while. Toward the end, several of the more experienced players had, and responded to, the impulse to get on their feet. Everyone followed their lead, and the thing really came alive. It was clear from the final “any note of your choice” circulation that there had been forward progress in our 2 hours together.

Back to my place for the Performance Team rehearsal, which began with a short (but not as short as I had originally envisioned) full company meeting to get the full team up to speed on how the Thursday show with the Kids Circle is going to go. It was a beautiful afternoon, so we met outside in the back yard. That may help to explain why the meeting went long – no one wanted to leave. I laid out the general framework of the show, pointed out a number of the challenges, and together we hammered out the details. Quite a few insights and inspirations from the team that were vast improvements over my original conception, and so by the end of the meeting we had crafted a far superior performance. Left the meeting feeling energized and enthusiastic.

Short Performance Team rehearsal inside at my place. Most of our work on The Children’s Hour, as the (absent due to work obligations) Music Director had made it pretty unambiguous that he would like to have it available for Thursday. A Day In The Life, Space Zombies! From Outer Space!, and 49 Notes also received a bit of attention.