FLUNK DAY!!!

The annual event we all talk about came and went on Thursday. I have to say this is the best it’s been for a couple years. Students always work together to put all their clues together to solve the mystery of “Is it Flunk Day tomorrow?” - they mowed the lawns, there are no prospective students on campus, the event that was scheduled for tomorrow is suspicious (in this case a former Knox professor was supposed to speak), no sporting events, etc.

But even when you’re 90% sure it is going to be Flunk Day tomorrow that 10% chance means you get your homework done and when 5:30 am rolls around you’re still surprised. In the wake of the previous week’s quality Flunk Day Scare everyone was pretty reluctant to believe it was, in fact, the day we’d all been waiting for. I think Dean of Students Xavier Romano was even outside on a Bull Horn shouting that it was Flunk Day, but no one dared get their hopes too high until they got “the e-mail” that confirms it for a fact.

This year, along with the classic Mud Pit, Foam Pit, and inflatable games, Knox brought in a mechanical bull, caricature artists, GO-Karts, human foosball, gladiator jousting, and laser tag throughout the day. Elvis and Abraham Lincoln themselves joined that party, too.

As fun as Flunk Day is, it’s exhausting. Starting the day at 5:30 after a week of staying up late finishing homework is a little bit difficult. Everyone takes time between 10 and 12 for a little nap before heading back out to the party.

A lot of faculty and staff come out to campus to see how we’re all doing. There is also the faculty-senior softball game. The faculty win just about every year. It has to be rigged or something. This year some of the members of the Ameba Dance Company that were in town (see my previous entry) came by, as well. They had a blast and were talking about it almost as much as the students.

The night finished off with a great concert by Chicago’s Lucky Boys Confusion (who confirmed that Knox is way more fun than WIU). By the time the concert was over I was more than ready to crash in my bed – and this is at about 9:30 pm. Classes resume bright and early the next morning (unless you don’t have any classes or you’re just lucky like I was this year and your first class is cancelled).

I’ll try to get some pictures from Flunk Day posted here soon, but I’m having trouble figuring it out.

Arts activities are running out of control. All term Knox seniors have been hosting art openings in CFA as their final requirement for their majors. There is a new reception every Friday at 6. Two weekends ago there were two nights of one-act plays down in Studio Theatre. This weekend my improv troupe performed and Chicago’s Ameba Acrobatic and Aerial Dance Troupe put on a concert. Sheri Lynn Wood is also at the college displaying her Mantra Trailer and giving a talk entitled Acts of Devotion: Service, Social Practice and New Genre Public Art. Hamlet opens in two weeks followed by the informal and then formal dance concert.

Ameba is in Galesburg all week working with a group of students, choreographing an aerial dance piece that will be performed in the Spring Term Formal Dance Concert.

While they’re here they’re also running two sets of workshops in aerial dancing. I attended today’s workshop and found myself dangling precariously above the ground in ways that seemed to defy physics. There are two more sessions for this workshop. Wednesday we’ll be working on hanging from silks and I’m not sure what we’ll be doing Friday.

Various clubs, organizations, and departments have done a lot to bring in outside artists to give workshops. In the winter, Dawn Arnold came from Chicago’s Moving Dock Theatre to give a workshop in Meisner’s Acting technique. Earlier this term Western Illinois’ D.C. Wright ran a fight choreography workshop. Additionally, with the search for a new Theatre Professor, 5 or 6 applicants ran monologue workshops for a handful of students.

The classes at Knox are clearly the basis of your education here, but all of the workshops and outside guests that come in are a fantastic supplement to that and are not to be missed (a lesson I caught on to much later than I should have). Being as close as we are to Chicago we get have a great advantage when it comes to guest residencies; and being as close as we are to schools like U of Illinois, Western, and U of Iowa we have an even wider variety of guests available. On top of that, the Deans of Knox are often more than willing to help raise the necessary money to pay for such great opportunities.

If you’re up late Wednesday nights (“Late,” in this case, is defined as midnight, central time) you should head to www.wvkc.org and stream the radio station.  I hear from a pretty good source that there is a solid radio show called “What We Have Here Is” from 12-1am every Wednesday night.

So forgive the corny setup and plug for my radio show. But it really is a good show, I swear! I’ve been in a very laidback (dreamy) mood by the time midnight rolls around so I’ve been playing lots of older stuff like Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Marley, and The Beatles mixed in with some more recent stuff like The Squirrel Nut Zippers, Langhorne Slim, and The Flaming Lips. It looks like an odd combination on paper, but it flows together nicely. Plus I take requests, so you can call me while I’m up there and I’d be happy to play something for you.

This is the fifth or sixth radio show I’ve done in four years and I’ve played all sorts of music – ska, cockney hip-hop, reggae, punk, comedy (a co-host of mine found the Rodney Dangerfield rap record, it was fantastic), covers, and one time we did a tribute to really bad love songs. I always pick the late time slots so I can go over the hour time limit when I feel like it (which happens to be most weeks). It gets a little creepy in the radio station that late at night. I’m the one person in the entirety of GDH. It’s super quiet and half-lit. One night a few years ago I had a friend join me in the booth and we had the pleasure of meeting the bat that used to live up there (I’m assuming he’s gone, as I’ve not seen him since). That was one of only two times I’ve ever left the station early.

There was another time when I was wrapping up my show and one of the local pizza delivery guys called and begged me to keep playing music because he listened every week while driving and liked what I played. I kept going for about another half-hour or so, just for him. I haven’t heard from him since then (that was my first-year) so I don’t know if he still listens or not.

If you’re curious about what other shows there are every week you can check out the schedule on-line at http://deptorg.knox.edu/wvkc/schedulespring08.html (the link on the website still takes you to the winter schedule). There are some good shows on there for you to check out.

Spring term has by no means started calmly.

I suppose the start of the term is rarely a calm thing. This time, though, I had two days of auditions for the Improv show I’m directing, a night of auditions for the Terpsichore Dance Collective, an Ultimate Frisbee tournament the first two weekends back (and another this coming weekend), and then my normal class load on top of that. It’s been hectic.

The other thing about Spring Term is that, as the weather gets nicer, it becomes harder to focus on school work when you’d rather be outdoors. And Flunk Day.

The one day of the year Knox cancels classes and throws a big party all day long, starting between 5 and 6 in the morning and going until about 9 or 10 at night at which point everyone is more-than-ready to fall asleep for the night after such a long day.

The mantra of the Knox Student during the Spring is “I heard flunk day is tomorrow.” It’s the running joke since no one knows when it is. Although every year I say it less and less as a joke and more and more as wishful thinking. Looking forward to that one day off keeps most of us pushing through the term. Once that hits we can all take solace in the fact that the term is coming to a close and then its Summer.

My Dance Theory and Improv class is currently doing work on site-specific performances. We’re removing performance from the confines of the dance floor or stage and seeing what this opens up. We started by each just exploring a couple areas around campus (one area I looked at was one of the music practice rooms. I was attracted to the idea of bodies moving freely in a confined space). The second step was taking a little field trip out of the Aux Gym where class is normally held and going to the Ford Center for the Fine Arts and doing a little improv performance right in front of the admissions office (if any of you reading this were the prospective students that witnessed this I sincerely hope we didn’t scare you off). For about 20 minutes we performed up and down the corridor combining improvised movement with a handful of choreographed combinations and with movements derived from movement suggestions (including directions as simple as “kick something,” or “do whatever Brian does,” to things slightly more complicated like “step through the space-time continuum into a far off time – 703 AD – and introduce the masses to rock-and-roll”).

The final step in this project was to break into groups and create a performance piece for next Wednesday. My group is decided to not only explore a new space, but also the idea of performance itself. The basic idea behind this class is that any movement can be dance – if it’s a pirouette across the dance floor or raising your hand in class, all of it can be performed. It’s really opened our eyes to the endless possibilities. Our performance starts in Harbach Theatre’s green room – the actors’ lounge, basically. The audience is encouraged to get comfortable while we move around them (and perhaps move them with us). One by one we each encourage the audience to “follow me” and leave in different directions, forcing the audience to choose – how long to stay, who to follow, which direction to go; the audience’s experience suddenly becomes based on individual choice. We all eventually end up in the same place, a staircase in the music wing, where the performance continues (or rather carries on; after all, it never stopped) on, ending with us then joining the audience watching the now-empty staircase.

We’re all pretty excited about the performance, even if it is just for our class (and anyone who happens to be passing through the Green Room or stairway). This class has really pushed us all to explore new ideas relating to dance, performance, art, and expression. It’s one of those classes that you find applications for in all your other classes, no matter what department they’re in.

It’s a busy week in Knox’s theatre community. Wednesday through Saturday the winter mainstage (and English-language world premier of) Rosa and Blanca ran. Thursday and Friday were auditions for the spring mainstage play Hamlet, directed by Elizabeth-Carlin Mets. Meanwhile, on Friday and Saturday a couple friends in the department drove down to St. Louis for the Midwest Theatre Auditions where they got 5 separate call-backs between them for work this summer. Strike for Rosa and Blanca was Sunday and the Hamlet cast-list was posted Monday. Now I’m in Tech Rehearsals for The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, which is opening next Thursday down in the Studio theatre. Petitions to direct shows down in the Studio Theatre are due Friday at noon. Friday at 7:00 is the opening of Terpsichore Dance Collective’s winter informal dance concert titled Forget Me Not, in which I happen to be making my Terp debut. Needless to say I’m doing a bit of scrambling to stay on top of everything (and that’s just in the theatre department).

I had the pleasure of having professor Neil Blackadder attend my rehearsal for Judas tonight. One of the requirements when directing a show in Studio is to have at least one faculty member attend a rehearsal. While it sounds a bit intimidating most directors actually look forward to the chance to have a second, more experienced eye look at the work we’ve done. Tomorrow night Kelly Hogan will be doing the same thing for me. Aside from these visits faculty are not involved in any student-directed show without being asked for help (at which point they will gladly give advice). It is otherwise 100% student-created work. Other students are usually more than happy to step in and give some feedback. An alumni friend of mine, Evan, was back in town last week and stopped by to see how things were going and tomorrow my friend Courtney will be there.

I’ve noticed the theatre department becoming increasingly more collaborative over the past four years here at Knox. I can’t speak for the state of things prior to 2004, but I get the impression they were a little different. Most of us will pinpoint 2007’s Rep Term experience as the event that solidified our close-knit group, but it may have started the term before in the Introduction to Theatre Tech class where most of the Rep Term students with little knowledge of theatre tech (those of us who largely considered ourselves actors-only) began to watch each others’ backs as we worked on the different projects in the class. Since we were all aware that most of us had little real idea what we were doing we were sure to share what knowledge (obviously not on tests) we did have to help teach each other. If that wasn’t the moment then it was the day we got back for Winter Term where a bunch of the Rep Term students gathered together to workshop our audition monologues – the same people we’d be competing for parts against we were now helping to be the best they could be.

Since then it has become common practice to help each other with audition monologues (I worked with a couple different actors before Hamlet auditions), work calls for studio show set building, or any other side projects anyone wants to do. This is an environment that I don’t think I’d have at a larger school where so many people are vying for so few roles. And even though it’s small, Knox’s “student-to-opportunity” ratio is probably way better than a large university.

Coming up for me soon: writing my petition to direct a long-form Improv show in Studio this spring, Judas going through tech and opening, a draft of my Introduction and Methods section of my senior research, and then finals. These next two weeks are going to be packed.

This past weekend six area schools (plus alumni from both Knox and Bradley) came for a weekend of Ultimate Frisbee – the 15th Annual Winter White Out Tournament. Since shortly after the team started teams have come by for a fantastic weekend. 10 teams in total participated. Knox Xonk (our team name) had an A and B team, plus the alumni come back every year with their own team and this year Bradley brought some of their own alums.

Everyone looks forward to the tournament since at Knox we’re actually lucky enough to have a place to play in the middle of winter. Another great thing about the weekend is that winning the whole tournament comes in a close second in importance to having fun – but not in the “it’s not whether you win or loose, it’s how you play the game” sense. Since most of the teams are from schools nearby we seem them at tournaments all year round and some of us play on summer league teams with them. While we of course still want to win, we also can’t complain about seeing our friends rock it out there.

Xonk’s A Team got third place this year after a disappointing semi-final loss to Western Illinois University’s team Mass Hysteria. WIU went on to beat Northern Illinois University in the finals to win the tournament. Like I said, the loss was disappointing, but we all love both of those teams. We’ll seem them both at the Sectionals tournament in the Spring and maybe once or twice more before the year ends.

Xonk’s B Team, made mostly of first year players and a few returning players who are too busy to make it out to practice regularly, didn’t win any games (they’ve won a total of 1 in the four years I’ve been here, but as an interesting side note, due to a couple teams forfeiting their placement in the brackets the B team made it to the quarter finals for the first time ever) but they played hard and really stepped it up (they actually scored more points against WIU than the A Team did), most of them taking positions of leadership that they don’t normally have as first years.

I’m already looking forward to coming back next year and playing on the Alumni team. Some of them have been playing since 1994, and possibly longer. They’re “old” but that doesn’t stop them. With that much experience you don’t always have to be faster than a team to beat them when you can put up the ridiculous throws some of them can.