Autumn has officially arrived here in Geneva, and the leaves are turning fantastic shades of red, orange, and yellow. I’m not exactly sure what type of trees they have here (I know I’m failing Mrs. Myers’ 8th-grade Leaf Project by admitting this...) but the leaves are ENORMOUS…almost the size of a dinner plate! The air is cool and damp…generally not the crisp, invigorating atmosphere of Colorado or New England, but I like it. Some mornings on my commute to school the lake is covered with a dense, gravy-like fog (Brouillards) that spills out onto the boardwalk. It’s pretty fantastic to view, which is good considering that I have about a two mile walk from my apartment to the IJD…some days I end up with 8 miles of walking or more! It reminds me of how lucky I’ve been to have lived in such beautiful places over the past 6 years…of course, who knows…with my luck, my next living arrangement will be in a basement apartment with no windows somewhere in the bowels of the Bronx?!?!? Mike sent me a care package the other day, and you can see some of the fun Halloween items in my kitchen…it’s great! I am particularly fond of the skeleton riding the bike…heh heh!
Today is a laundry day, which I’ve now discovered is probably going to double as Blog day. Unfortunately, the ‘every week’ blog goal will probably have to be pushed back to every two weeks….sigh. Still, it’s about all I can do considering that I am literally living and breathing Dalcroze for 15 hours each day…except for the superb moments when the WiFi internet actually works in my room and I get to talk to Mike and others back home. I live on the 6th floor of a rather large building of 117 residents. My apartment isn’t exactly all that I’d hoped it would be…for starters, I discovered that a “one-bedroom” apartment here means that you have one bedroom within a two bedroom SHARED living space. My roommate, who has not yet arrived due to Visa issues, comes from Africa, and I’m not actually sure when he’ll get here. On the one hand, the situation is actually pretty cool, because I know very little about African culture of any kind…on the other hand, I was looking forward to having a bit more private space, and as you can see from the pictures, there’s not much space to begin with. And then there’s the internet issue…the WiFi here works sometimes, but usually not well enough for me to make phone calls back home…grrr. Thank God for Mike and Brenda or I don’t think I’d be able to do much of anything online. Basically, I’m not in my apartment very often, so I’m sure it will all work out just fine. Finally, on a positive note, I’m living next door to two fantastic folks who are former graduates from the IJD, and they’ve been very helpful in getting me organized here.
Today is a laundry day, which I’ve now discovered is probably going to double as Blog day. Unfortunately, the ‘every week’ blog goal will probably have to be pushed back to every two weeks….sigh. Still, it’s about all I can do considering that I am literally living and breathing Dalcroze for 15 hours each day…except for the superb moments when the WiFi internet actually works in my room and I get to talk to Mike and others back home. I live on the 6th floor of a rather large building of 117 residents. My apartment isn’t exactly all that I’d hoped it would be…for starters, I discovered that a “one-bedroom” apartment here means that you have one bedroom within a two bedroom SHARED living space. My roommate, who has not yet arrived due to Visa issues, comes from Africa, and I’m not actually sure when he’ll get here. On the one hand, the situation is actually pretty cool, because I know very little about African culture of any kind…on the other hand, I was looking forward to having a bit more private space, and as you can see from the pictures, there’s not much space to begin with. And then there’s the internet issue…the WiFi here works sometimes, but usually not well enough for me to make phone calls back home…grrr. Thank God for Mike and Brenda or I don’t think I’d be able to do much of anything online. Basically, I’m not in my apartment very often, so I’m sure it will all work out just fine. Finally, on a positive note, I’m living next door to two fantastic folks who are former graduates from the IJD, and they’ve been very helpful in getting me organized here.
Classes continue to go well…mostly. I sometimes get disgruntled with the approach of some professors here…when it comes to movement, there is not a lot freedom. Oftentimes, the teachers tell you exactly how they want you to move and “express” the music…which honestly is not my cup of tea and somehow seems antithetical to the Dalcroze work as I have come to know and study it. It’s interesting, too, because generally speaking there is a very negative vibe among the students when it comes to Plastique Animée (the visual analysis/representation of a piece of music). For me, this is a pity, because I have really learned to enjoy Plastique, but I can completely understand why students here would find it cumbersome and boring.
Still, the general vibe is excellent, and I’m learning a great deal from all the teachers here. My improvisation continues to grow and develop far better than I had expected, and solfège is getting better, day by day. One of the items that I find to be particularly challenging and eye-opening is the amount of emphasis placed on dissociation and association in the courses. Teachers will have you put one rhythm in your hands, another in your feet, and when they call “change,” you must change the rhythms immediately from hands to feet and feet to hands. Other times, they call “Hands, Hop,” and you must do the rhythm in your hands twice as slow…while you maintain the other rhythm in the feet. If they call “Feet, Hip,” then you must do the feet twice as fast. Rhythms of all kinds are juxtaposed with one another, including syncopations other knotty patterns. I’m sure you can imagine the complicated layering that takes place for exercises of this nature, especially when the changes come every other measure…yikes!!! Oftentimes, by the end of a course, I’m drenched with sweat and panting. It’s funny because I’m really starting to acknowledge my age…my stomach muscles are sore, and my bones constantly crack and creak…it sucks to get old!!!
Tomorrow is a rather big day for me, as I have my first experience teaching rythmique (Eurhythmics) to Swiss students who are 10-12 years old. The course I’ll be teaching is the 5th year class (generally speaking there are 6 years of rhythmique available), so it will be interesting to see how things go. I’m not so nervous for the actual teaching as much as I’m nervous about teaching au Français! We’ll see how it goes…the kids are very nice, so even if I end up stepping all over my tongue, it shouldn’t be too big of a deal. More fun to come!!!
