Embedded Files
Challenges Entered: Stretch That Comfort Zone!, The Planning Stages, Period Poetry, Solo Performance
Projects: Travelling Outfit: Planning is Part of the Journey, A Conversation - Bardic Performance
The Planning Stages: Travelling Outfit: Planning is Part of the Journey
Travelling outfit / A journey in creation / Months in the making
Now with the sewing complete / Only the telling remains
I created a document to share how I planned my travelling outfit found here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lXrE-kFIm1l1pLWV810yBZcfvRAGWxjHLkifxgUXPCg/edit?usp=sharing
The other 3 challenges all revolve around my performance during Bardic War's Original Poetry Warpoint.
Stretch That Comfort Zone: A Conversation - Bardic Performance
Bardic arts make me incredibly nervous. Specifically the performing part. I’ve sung one song around a campfire at a Gulf Wars 18 years ago. I haven’t “performed” since.
On April 12 I was asked to consider performing Original Poetry in a live performance for Bardic War. Being Consort’s A&S Champion (at that time in waiting) I felt it my responsibility as a servant of the Kingdom to lend my art in the form of poetry to the war effort. Even though it made me feel a little sick.
Writing the poems to be performed took little time once I decided on the format of a conversation between lovers via tanka (Japanese poetic form). I practiced the poems out loud, made one minor edit and began to think of the visuals of the performance. I chose my outfit as is appropriate color-wise for the day and occasion. I decided the three poems would need something as a visual representation of the two voices and decided to use a two sided fan, switching between the sides with the two voices, inspired in part by fan dance.
I did a dress rehearsal, recorded, and then shared that with a few people for input. The resounding answer was to increase the pause between poems. In my own critique I decided the fan needed to be more obvious as well. I practiced my changes, verified them with video and then waited.
Just before the performance I was incredibly nervous. There was tech trouble with the live stream and that didn’t help how I was feeling. Everything was sorted and we got started a half hour behind schedule. I calmed a little as the other poets performed, but that didn’t last.
My nervousness was obvious at first. I fumbled my intro and explanation a bit. Luckily I was able to use my prop, a fan, to ground myself for the performance, which went just as I had rehearsed.
After the performance, I burst into tears. And I was so relieved and also shaking badly. Luckily the adrenaline wound its way out of my system in short order.
I’ve since watched the recording, and I’m very proud of my performance. I may have stumbled on my intro, but my performance itself was strong, and I did my best which is what really matters.
Solo Performance/Bardic War: A Conversation - Bardic Performance
I was asked to perform Original Poetry for Bardic War and encouraged by Drake Oranwood to perform a few tanka as they are rather short (only 31 syllables). The only way I knew of to link tanka together was if they were created all from the same prompt as was common for poetry competitions during the Heian period, or for the poems to be exchanged between people as part of a “conversation”. From the Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu written at the height of the Heian period (c. 1010), I knew that one author creating a conversation using tanka had been done. Period tanka are famous for word play, puns and double-entendre. I knew I wanted to include some of that flavor in my own poems while calling on seasonal references and the fleeting nature of beauty and life as those are strong themes in period poetry as well.
I followed Murasaki’s example and created a scenario where two people exchanged poems. I imagined a man who had probably been peering into a woman’s garden, catching sight of her face through the fence and being overtaken with her beauty. He sends a poem. As is appropriate, the lady in her response poem would rebuff the potential suitor politely but leave room for him to wonder and potentially keep trying. My suitor does just that with another poem.
A Conversation Edited.mp4Period Poetry: A Conversation - Bardic Performance
I have created an imagined conversation through poetry using the most popular poetic form of the Heian period (794-1186), tanka. Japanese tanka are written in 31 morae, similar to but not exactly syllables, on typically 2 lines with an upper phrase of 5-7-5 and a lower phrase of 7-7. Nothing is expressly required in a tanka outside of its form, but commonly they reference the ephemerality of beauty and life, contain puns and word play, and frequently reference other poems and nature. This particular set of poems was created for live performance during Bardic War.
Delicate branches / Exploding in pink blossoms / Brighten the garden
One wonders what Spring whispered / To prompt such a sudden blush
One hesitant bloom / Unnoticed amongst the rest / Waits, undecided
It knows Spring can be fickle / And tomorrow might be cold
The occasional / Chill of early Spring will be / Forgotten quickly
The gardener is patient / As he goes about his work
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