Well, five readers are infinitely more than zero, so I have an infinite reason to continue writing (fuzzy logic is fun).
Tonight was Hudø-night. I am still sick. I do not have a lot of energy or enthusiasm when I am sick. I apparently do not speak the correct dialect of body language to convey this, as the rest of the class still expected me to participate fully in all the shenanigans we tried on for size during our practice times.
The back end of the Hudø film just managed to squeeze in under the five-minute-limit, albeit in a rather disjointed fashion. We were ready for anything. Except, perhaps, actually doing what we had practiced.
Hudø-night presented various shows from all the different majors. Drawing and painting started out first, with impressionist sock puppets that would act out a short scene that we (the audience) were supposed to link up with a particular member of the school's faculty. A rather nice start.
Next up, interior design presented their work. Since nobody came up with the idea for surprise Feng Shui, the demonstration didn't actually have a whole lot to do with interior design.
Instead, it was a fill-in-the-blanks storytime. The audience was asked to provide several adjectives to two young women (interior design is populated almost exclusively by women. I dare you to take a wild guess as to who the one guy is. I've mentioned him before), who wrote them down and put them into the various slots left out in a short story written about the trip to Hudø.
It actually turned out quite well. There was a little strangeness of course, like when we were getting hyped up about "naked" Hudø, and then when actually we got to the "mosquito-eaten" place.
But everything turned out well in the end, as we returned to the "wonderful" school. Quite nice.
Up next, clothing ajnd costumes. This actually had a little bit to do with clothing. It also provided a glimpse as to why there are so few men in the clothing major.
Three chairs, three women from clothing and costumes, six male volunteers from the audience. The men get paired up, and then provided with a woman. For five minutes, the men are given free range of a selection of costumes, wigs, makeup and accessories with which they shall decorate their assigned lass.
Heh. One guy actually had a sense of style, and did a pretty fair job and his model (which is good, because his partner wasn't much help. He just ran around holding a can of hairspray and wearing his usual expression of confused happiness). One girl ended up with a rather unusual combination of effects, including a gold sequin dress and what I think was a Union Jack bandana around her neck.
Aaand one girl ended up with a shirt in her hair and the words "badass mother fucker" written on one arm.
After that, each team had to walk their model down the "catwalk" (center of the stage), and then give a brief description of what the **** they were thinking when they prettied them up.
Peculiar, but entertaining.
Then came the outdoorsman league with a brilliantly executed game show called "what's happening in the tent?" Three contestants were given some sound-making device (read: pair of shorts, drum, and novelty keychain that breathes lustily when activated) which were used as buzzers. For each round, a sheet propped up by a wooden stick (obviously supposed to be a tent of some sort) would be ferried out onto stage. A few seconds later, a couple of the show's staff would begin acting out behind the tent in a form of shadow theater.
Yes, it was all blatantly sexual in nature. The shadow forms would be participating in wild sex while the actors yelled out innuendo like there was no tomorrow.
The contestants had to ring their "buzzer" (poor girl who ended up with the raunchy keychain only tried to use it once, and could barely stand to say anything once it started panting heavily) if they thought they knew what was really going on behind the tent.
They could have worked a little bit harder to come up with slightly more believable actions, but that's just the way it is. All in all, a single point was earned over the course of five tents. And that was only because it was "close enough".
Very well acted out, with wonderful use of sound. Quite lovely.
Then a little break, and theater class decided to do their thing. It wasn't just one act, it was a compilation of little mini-skits that were all done quite well.
There was a "Thriller" dance scene (with our token dark-skinned laddie leading the way, of course), which would have been perfect had the music not acted up so terribly.
After that came something that I really can't remember. All I remember was that they finished with an advertisement-laden version of Romeo and Juliet, which took a turn for the dramatic with that play's final and arguably most powerful scene. The joining of the two lovers in eternal slumber.
Well, it would have been eternal if they didn't keep waking up, noticing the other was dead, and then killing themselves again. It was a sort of suicide leap-frog.
The girl went a little bit overboard with her shrieks, but otherwise the scene was fine. A wonderful presentation from the theater folks.
Aaand then a little blip from music class, showcasing some lipsynching of popular songs from the seventies. Not much to write home about.
Then it's our turn. Goddamn how I hate last-minute changes.
We were supposed to sing, we all knew that. Then the guys figured it would be great form if they all wore really tight stockings and other clothing with homosexual overtones. And then we would all do coordinated knee-bends in time to the song while we were singing it.
Now, we didn't practice this. And it took us three sessions before we could get the timing right on the song without worrying our minds with coordinated knee-bends. Is there anybody else here who has experienced firsthand how much more difficult it becomes when you add just that one more thing to your mind's workload?
But it worked out. I wore my hat, which makes everything better. I did not wear homosexual clothing, however. I'm still sick, and cutting down from my heavy fleece jacket to this dress shirt was already too much of a chill-change. No way I'm baring skin in this condition.
And then came the Hudø film. It wasn't spectacular, there were some really good scenes that nobody noticed because they were too short (we knew about them beforehand, so we didn't think about it when we were presenting the film to people who had never seen the footage before), and the movie developed hitches after it had played for a while (goddamn useless Windows Media Player...).
The applause was deafening. It was that particularly hard applause that comes when the audience is really feeling a reason to clap, instead of just going along with the flow. Felt bloody fantastic.
After that we took a trip down to the gymnasium where the music major held their real performance. A mini-concert with altered versions of several different songs. The musicians were quite skilled, but it was pretty clear that the only professional singer was the music teacher.
And finally, to wrap up the evening, they served cakes. Everyone's probably still sitting out there in the rec room, downing sugar by the bucketfuls.
But then there's me. I'm in here telling you about it. I can also say, with full honesty, that I am literally sick and tired.
The singing, combined with my change into lighter clothes, has done nothing good for my health. It's also half past midnight, and I've just come from a performance where I was most certainly not in any shape to perform.
I'm gonna head on out again, see if things have quieted down a bit. I'm one of those people who can't hear anything when lots of people are talking. And my hamhanded grasp of Norwegian doesn't help matters.
Author
Topic: Sandy Fjord (Read 96313 times)