Week B: The Bard, One Breakdown and Kendra's Blueberry Muffin.
- Olivia Denton
- Oct 22, 2019
- 3 min read
The Bard:
When I first spotted 'Shakespeare' on the timetable I thought…cool…I mean nothing new for me ENGLISH DEGREE DENTON but…cool. However, I clearly knew nothing. Everything feels new and so so exciting, I’m like a child when they first discover Christmas: obsessed. The class is led by Jaq who is the kind of character that effortlessly oozes cool and you constantly feel like maybe you need to get a fresh haircut when you see her because you just look reallllly uncool in comparison. In Shakespeare we are learning to live the language, embody it and engage on a guts-to-heart level which is exhilarating. I live so much in the imaginary and the thoughts of characters that I often neglect their bodies – which is where famously 93% of communication hails from. Now I feel like a child with a brand-new toy, and I’m loving testing it out, discovering new tricks and just really going for everything with this new childlike abandon that I haven’t been able to access since well…childhood. It’s so freeing after being told by bad teachers to ‘tone it down a bit love’ – I tried explaining that if Lady Macbeth is talking about dashing her own kid’s brain out, she’s hardly going to be subtle about it, luckily GSA gets that.

A Breakdown:
(Small violin is dusted off and propped on my shoulder)
Ensemble Singing was the burn of the week. Standing around the piano, I felt suffocated with many voices belting out with seeming ease and confidence notes that I had no idea how to even begin forming. I felt an epic onset of imposter syndrome overpower me and suddenly I couldn’t croak out one note. Then, I just started crying and shaking uncontrollably. I’ve always adopted armour in classroom situations and singing to me is the most naked and disarming thing someone can challenge me with, and the fact it was in a classroom: nope nope da nope. I sunk out of the room and tried to swallow the feeling of failure clogging my throat in the familiar breakdown spot of the bathroom.
My lovely friend, Andy came to find (well, rescue) me and if he hadn’t I think I was probably planning my great escape via scaling the roof. However, I went back into the room and proceeded to sing (with zero talent) because just because I’m not great and never will be I can still be badass at trying, and isn’t that what my lord and saviour, Cher would want?
Kendra’s Blueberry Muffin:
In Voice class this week, we had to visualise delicious blub’ muffins fresh out of the oven, really smell that aroma, then exhale and claim our muffin out-loud with the phrase :
“MY MUFFIN”
"MY MUFFIN"
"MY MUFFINS".
Besides from being hilarious, it was also pretty profound.
Kendra one of my classmates (they're all amazing btw) has a particularly admirable sense of enjoyment and relishing of life in all its forms; because of this I believe Kendra has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard. Her voice is just overflowing with energy and enthusiasm so my “MY MUFFIN” just felt a bit soggy-bottomed vs Kendra's perky lil' muffin. I realised that we should all aim to taste and claim those Kendra-quality muffins and maybe we can begin to do that by tapping into a place of self love and fun as oppose to self-punishment and perfectionism?
I believe this muffin incident relates to the work we can all do within ourselves: discovering joy, experience and sensation as if for the first delicious time. This week we were tasked with engaging in an autumn walk as our ‘inner child’. I will not divulge the teaching technique as I don’t own it and I can’t emulate the words with any gravitas that our teacher Ian Ricketts has in abundance. However, after this exercise I realised that my four-year old me exclusively enjoys muffins to their absolute fullest Kendra-level extent with no fear of looking or sounding stupid, she has no concept of shame. More importantly, I know my inner child wouldn’t let me down in singing class again. I have realised how connected we all are to someone much more pure and powerful inside- the us we were born as before time and tears force us to mould into something else.
So yeah… a pretty deep but pretty darn amazing week .
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