Darien DeVries

Well the past few weeks have been a series of ups and downs in my head. For some time, I was feeling like I have not been able to create new material and am right back where I started before coming to this school. However, last week, I pulled out the story I wrote for our very first show at the Clown Conservatory in early October. What I discovered was that while I wanted to make minor tweaks to the piece, I left it largely the same. But when I performed it in front of my class, I received the comment that it didn’t seem like the same piece at all. And I thought to myself “Wow, the piece didn’t really change. But I did.”

That made me feel better. It seems that my performance has developed in a way that I’m not really conscious of. That performing the same story could look so different from October until now is pretty astonishing. I am also pleased with the further development of the coat-switch piece that I performed with a partner back at that same first show. We tried it out last week and added some extra conflict in the last section – not merely just fighting with one another for the coat, but using all the contact improvisation from Body Awareness class to create a fun, comedic, yet smooth confrontation.

So I still feel like I have a hard time creating new material, but it no longer feels so impossible. That’s something I guess.