Our Banjar

Art, acting, love? These words did not exist in my life dictionary before. I play the piano, and I also used to play the flute, but I never understood what the word Art meant. Acting was a big “No No” for me. I never knew how to act and thought I will never learn. The biggest out of all was love. If we do not understand love, we cannot understand anything else in the world, especially not any kind of Art.

In the process of this course, I learned many things, not only from the course, but also from my environment. I used to keep everything to myself because I always thought, I would be better off this way. However, Francis, you taught us how to express ourselves. To let our feelings glide into our expressions and body. Why does every move have its own meaning even though it looks so similar to the next one? How can your eyes set different atmospheres for the audience? How can strange noises that we produce make our expressions more alive, even though they have no real meaning? How do we accomplish it that the audience understands us even though we do not use their language to communicate? What characteristics are necessary to be an artist? Is it innate or can it be learned?

To all these questions, there is only one answer: the individual. We, as an individual, have to open up ourselves and feel the character we are representing. For example, Ravana is not automatically recognized through his stamping hard or strange noises. It could be any of the Lankas. It is really the artist that makes Ravana alive by feeling what he felt when Sita rejected him. We do not express our feelings through stamping hard, but rather make the stamps more expressive through our feelings. Our body language is more meaningful when the feelings really exist because they polish every movement, putting more value into it.

I remember, the beginning of class, when Francis, you showed us some moves, everyone was giggling, and most likely thinking what in the world is going on. However, this immaturity or lack of knowledge did not last too long because we became part of the creation. We broke the wall of our shyness and entered your world of expressions, where we formed the Banjar. I was surprised as well as very content that our members were trustworthy. Everyone felt comfortable to talk about their problems, which was very important because only then we could forget our problems and express fully the characters we played. At that point we gave the weight of our worries to the Banjar, and slipped into the role of the characters of Ramayana.

At the end of class, I felt, everyone changed to a different person. We all were left with a better understanding of the Ramayana as well as of ourselves. We learned more about our capabilities, and about the Art of expression. When we went to the middle school, the children there reminded me of us. They giggled during our performance, and yet they paid attention to what was happening. They are much younger than us, and yet we did not act much different than them. However, this class taught us how to learn from others and mainly from ourselves, rather than from books or power point slides. It gave us a start, and we will still be continuing to learn.

This was the one class where I looked forward to get to, and yet I missed four classes throughout the semester: twice in October when I had big tests, and twice in November where I was sick the first time and had to signed up for classes the second time. However, the feedback of our Banjar always helped me to catch up. The blogs were my weakness. It was hard for me to keep up with the weekly entries. At the end of every class, I always learned something new. So I always had something to say, but I kept losing track of time, and kept forgetting to put my thoughts down on paper. I never had a diary, so that might be another disadvantage because the blog was a type of a diary. I came mostly on time to class, helped where ever I could, and contributed to the Banjar, but I still wish, I could have performed in the Kimbell Theater. However, I am glad that some of us did because I did not want to let this opportunity slip out of our hands. So, thank you soo much Banjar. Our final performance was amazing, and heads up for our Ravana, she was marvelous. In my opinion, I deserve an A. I entered the class as an individual, and left as a part of a community where people were very different from each other, and yet so similar. I met many sweet people and learned the meaning of a community. However, I let you decide what letter grade I deserve. To be honest, what we learned is far more valuable and important than the letter grade. Thank you very much Guru for introducing us to ourselves and to a world where there is still some hope for good. Do not ever let anybody discourage you and keep up with your way of teaching; it will encourage people to develop a sense of responsibility. I hope we left a positive mark in you life as much as you did in ours.

Find My Way

Asian Art Performance! What comes through your mind when you hear the name of this course? Like many other students, even I thought that in this class you will be learning about Asian theater and dances, which is partly true but not fully. Here, you do not only learn how to perform these arts but also understand them. I have also learned how they can be applied to our everyday lives.

I have never thought about comedy in a serious way. You see all these comedians making faces and cracking jokes but why is it really so funny when someone makes fun of him/herself? Why do we laugh about it? Francis explained to us that these comedians do not act or exaggerate but do it with true feelings. That applies to an actor/actress as well. An actor is not a good actor unless he melts into the role of his character he is playing. In that moment, he forgets himself, and the soul of the character slips into his body. Now, how does this apply to the real life? But first, what is the real life? It is the life that we create for ourselves, that we believe in, and that we continue to believe in. Francis explained that the only way we can achieve something is by not thinking about anything else but doing our best and giving our hundred percent, not worrying about what the outcome will be, and what we would get back because we will get more back than we actually expected. Open up yourself, have faith in yourself, and be proud of what you are.

My great fish in this class is to learn and understand the different dance disciplines we are learning because they do not only shape my body but also increase my understanding of life. We stamp really hard on the ground, and then we do our namashkar to ask for forgiveness from the earth. Don’t we do the same with people we love? We hurt them, and then we ask for forgiveness. Why do we hurt someone we love? Because those are the people we trust and know that even though they will get hurt by our words or actions, they will always be there to back us up. We all want to finish college with good grades and move on in life, but besides that, I want to establish what I want to do with my knowledge. This class has been helping me to realize different aspects of life. It is not only making my body more flexible but also my thoughts and my analysis of the world.

The banjar

The text Social System of Bali says that “the 'banjar' is a community of equals; before the 'banjar' all castes are equal.” As a community in class, this can be beneficial to us because no one here is better than the others. No one is smarter, no one is richer, and no one is more valuable. Everyone is the same. Here, we do not compete with each other but work and think with each other. There are no stairs to climb up in order to beat the others but there is a rope that you can grab and help the others to accomplish something as one single unit.

When we talked about the banjar in class, I realized that we all really did not understand what this was. In our lives outside of the classroom, there is no such thing like a single unit but the theory of the ‘survival of the fittest.’ Everyone is trying to be better than others, not only in studies but also in many other things. Competition and success that is all our lives are about. But the banjar is more like a big family where we help each other, listen to each other, laugh with each other, and the most important things is we walk step by step next to each other.

Monday’s class was a little confusing because everyone walked into the class expecting to talk about the Ramayana but instead we had long moments of silence. No one knew what to say because no one really knew what we were doing. That’s where our lack of understanding got us. That is the banjar where the members of the banjar meet up and share their thoughts, expectations, ideas, and problems. Eventually, even we got the habit of it and dared to talk.

A day outside.

I realized today something. One thing that Francis pointed out. He was right, we should give without expecting something back. We should just give. Every time I would give someone something, I would be scared of doing a mistake or not giving it to the right person. Trust is one of those things. But today I learned that I should just trust. What the other person does with it, is his or her choice. But I know that I trusted them 100 % and even if I get hurt afterwards, I know that I was not lacking anything; it was the other person that did not know how to take care of my trust. So now I am willing to give my 101% without asking for anything back.

I have been stressed this whole week about stupid little things. I think it was me myself who was making life much harder then it is. I also noticed how weak I was getting mentally as well as physically. Today, I was close to skipping class cos I barely could move but I am glad that I forced myself to go to class because every class period I learn something new about myself. I look at life from another angle now. I always say, I don't regret my mistakes but I learn from them. Today, I think nothing in life is a mistake but an experience, something that is necessary for us in any field of life, even if it is pain.

It was a good class and I enjoyed the air outside. I feel like a burden was taken off my shoulders. Thank you Francis for making every day a new experience and teaching us more about ourselves and our capabilities.

Week Four

Class has become more and more interesting. I enjoy learning the dance. Kalyani and Ravali did such a great job teaching us certain moves. I can notice, as we proceed each week, the dance becomes more and more complex but that is what makes it more exciting. Walking in a certain way (which looks like dancing) with a cup on the head definitely acquired some concentration. It was funny when Francis caught me "cheating." I tied my hair up to a bun and placed the cup on top of it, which kept it from falling. It was pretty funny.

The "sir dit pun dit" circle is just awesome. It looks like, it would be really easy but it's really not. It is hard to keep the speed while the other group is "chaking." And because the other group was depended on our "sir dit pun dit," we had to make sure we were not going to fast or too slow. We ended up getting faster. It looked funny when Francis did it by himself at first but once we did it ourselves, it was serious stuff.

I am curious to know what we are going to do in class tomorrow.

The Dance

Monday was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed what Kalyani was teaching us. Even though I am originally Indian, I never learned how to dance the traditional Indian dance. I did not have big problems to learn the steps, and I kind of knew some movements from watching Indian movies. The end of class was also intersting.

My first day of class

Today was my first day of class because i missed class on Wednesday due to the glitches in the sign up system. Class was interesting, actually really relaxing. It feels like stress is approaching us from everywhere but here we could actually breath and learn while we let our spirits free. Stretching really felt good; I feel less tense now. I also liked the fact that all students had the choice to introduce themselves whenever they wanted to and add the information of their choice. I am excited about Wednesday.