...When You're Having Fun

As of yesterday, I have been living in New York for an entire month and I'm still alive. This, to me, is a milestone and I thought it would be fitting to add another post to commemorate this occasion.

It is a bit hard to believe that it's been a month here already. On one hand it seems so much longer because I miss my friends and family back home and I think about them daily, naturally. On the other hand it feels so short because everyday in this city is such an adventure and it feels like there is still so much that I haven't done while here. 

I think I might have mentioned this in a previous post, but it is so difficult to be a tourist in a foreign country when you're a resident. Now I know why Americans are, in general, so unexplored. 

The one cool thing that I regularly am doing, and am going to continue doing, is watching a lot of Broadway and Off-Broadway shows and musicals. In the past three weeks I've seen The Lion King, Rent, and Memphis and I think I am watching Spiderman:Turn Off The Dark tomorrow. I'll tell you a lot more about these in my next post, but what I want to throw at you is what would you go do if you were in New York City for 24 hours? Leave your comments and let's see what comes up. I'm hoping to get a bunch of collective ideas and spend one weekend in the future being an official tourist.

Time surely does fly when you're having fun like I am, but I can't let that keep me from exploring this beautiful and historic city.

The Circle of Life

I know I haven't blogged in over a week, but because I had two blog posts in a single week previously I'm hoping you'll forgive me. Now, let's get down to business...

I am quite intrigued - almost on a daily basis - at how life works it's self out. The purpose-filled connections we make, and the opportune timing of events. I mean if you think about it everything that has brought you to this moment here has been meticulously calculated up to this very second. The people you have come across, the career path you chose, the events in your life, and even the minor activities that you plan over your weekends. Everything has some form of significance somewhere. If you don't understand what I'm saying then rent a movie called 'The Adjustment Bureau' starring Matt Damon and that should give you a lead.

For those of us who are accelerated, let me fill you in on what got me thinking about this. Last week Saturday I had the coolest privilege of watching my very first Broadway production, The Lion King. In the moment right after I purchased my ticket from the box office I then realized that, oddly enough, The Lion King was also my very first movie way back in 1995 as a 6/7 year-old kid. Significance? Well it's nothing that will change your life forever, but The Lion King is also a production I had auditioned for back home but having not known very much about the world of Musical Theatre at the time. Needless to say I did not get cast. Now, as the circle of life would have it, one of my instructors at the New York Film Academy, Thom Christopher Warren, is a part of the cast and has been a part of this Broadway production for the past nine years. Maybe it's just me, but the dot's I'm connecting are pretty cool.

Anyway, after the show I get a personal backstage tour from the the man himself and I have the opportunity to also say 'howzit' to some fellow South Africans who are a part of the cast. Throughout my tour Thom drops statements such as 'when you're a part of the The Lion King...' in an attempt to spur me on and encourage me I guess. Two words: it worked! Here's a dot I'm already seeing: next time The Lion King holds auditions I will already have a good word on the inside as long as I continue to work hard prove myself in the days of learning.

Similarly, my housing woes in the city have come to an end and I attribute it to this very Circle of Life. I now live with a friend of mine who has followed a totally different journey to me in life, but yet here we are together in New York City in the same apartment at the end. In short, Willem is a virtuoso pianist/composer/arranger who was a school mate in Bloemfontein, later became my vocal coach in our chamber choir (glee club) at school, we then became friends and kept contact through the wonders of technology such as Facebook and Skype, and now after almost ten years we are roommates in New York City and are both in the same industry. How cool is that?

If you haven't noticed, a lot of my posts are loosely based on scriptural references and are over-simplified (sometimes over-explained) versions of things a guy much smarter and wiser than I will ever be once said. As I write this, here is what comes to mind:

 "And we know that God causes EVERYTHING to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them" - Romans 8:28 (NLT)

P.S In the next post I'll tell you more about the amazing show I watched yesterday! WOW! Look out for it.

"We Will Never Forget..."

These are the words on almost every single American company's branding as you walk the city streets. These are the words that describe what every American feels at this time. What are they referring to? The lives lost ten years ago on 9/11. The brave men and women who came to the fore to provide emergency services and care for those who had had everything ripped away in a single instant. A nation that was brought together by terror.

I remember where I was ten years ago to this day. Walking in my local Spar to shop for snacks for the school trip we were taking the following day I noticed people watching TV with images of crashing planes. I paid little attention to this commotion - as a 7th grader would - until I got home to see our TV on the very same channel. Those crashing planes weren't fiction anymore. This was very much real life and, in fact, was going to be a reference point in history for everyone who was alive on planet earth at that time.

Fast forward ten years and I could have never guessed that I would be sitting in that exact once terror-strikken city myself. 

I sat in a church service that made me so emotional, yet also made me feel like a proud and resilient American (which I am not). You see, it's one thing to hear about people hurting and those that have gone through hardships, but a total other thing to live in their world. Their pain becomes your pain. You bleed when they bleed. 

In the beginning of the service, Ps Carl Lentz asks all those that have been directly affected or have lost someone by the happenings of 9/11 to stand up so they can be honoured for their resilience. My eyes tear up as I realise this is real right here, but at the same time I sense a tangible presence of God's unending love in the room as worship music plays in the background. It's in our times of desperate need that God is closest to us.

I honour every single American for their strength. I once might have thought that the events of 9/11 get over-reported, but being in the middle of it all ten years on, I also say 'we will never forget'.

"Now all I am, I lay at your feet. I'm humbled by the wonder of Your majesty. One thing I know, I find all I need in your unending love. In your unending love."

- Unending Love by Hillsong Live taken from the album God Is Able

Lights. Camera. Action!

It's Wednesday morning and I am buzzing with excitement. The weather doesn't seem to be on my side as it pours down with rain outside, but nothing can stop the spring in my step today. Nothing can get me down - even if I don't have an umbrella. It's the official start day of my Musical Theatre program at NYFA.

It started with the regular formalities of registration, collection of my file and orientation program, an international student debriefing session followed by a general debriefing session, and then... nothing. Yes, nothing. I psyched myself up so much and all I got was mere formalities and then we went home. Did someone say anti-climax? It was at least a thrill to see the buzz on campus when the entire starting class arrived but because everyone was in a different program it made it so difficult to connect with anybody. Now I was looking forward to the following two days as printed out on our orientation programs.

How do you know that you're part of a cool industry? When your Thursday starts out with a photo shoot. Wooohoooo! No, but seriously this is how my Thursday began. With head-shots, which was so cool. The photographs get used by those studying in other programs, like Film Making or Producing, when  they need to cast people for their projects. Right after head-shots we headed into auditions with the Chair of the MT program. I thought I had already gone through this process in order to get into this school, but clearly they don't play at NYFA. I chose to do 'Seasons of Love' in F (from Rent) and 'The Flesh Failures/Let The Sunshine' In  in Am (from Hair). Got good feedback and well, I'm just glad to still be in the program after that.

Now Friday was just off the charts! Granted I knew that going on a guided student tour of the city would spell pure awesomness, but never could I have guessed to what degree. Our tour guide, Kevin - what a cool name, is a faculty member at NYFA. However, what he neglected to tell us was that he is a lead in the hot Broadway production 'Book of Mormon' which has recently won 9 Tony's including Best Musical. He took us on a tour of New York City the way a NYFA-MT student needs to know it through Soho, Times Square, Broadway and the Lincoln Centre. The most amazing part though was when he organised for us to have backstage access to 'Book of Mormon'. As I went through the doors and eventually ended up centre stage in the Eugene O'Neill Theatre I had so much vision stirred up inside me. It was a moment of perfect alliance. The future, the big dream waiting on the present menial dedications. The law of seed and harvest. Kevin Singleton - another awesome name - says this: "...the harvest is always later, but it's always greater!"

This week I start with my classes, finally. I got my schedule on Friday and all I can say is if you're looking for me just make sure it's never between 09:00 and 18:00. Oh, and that is Monday to Friday. I have two kinds of dance this semester, ballet and jazz, and I have both those classes on my first day. Haven't danced a day in my life, but that's one of the things I'm most excited for. It's a brand new challenge so it is a little scary, but so exciting though.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others."

—Marianne Williamson

Sink Or Swim

New York City is not for the faint at heart. There is no time to 'find your bearings' and there's no time to ask too many questions. You move it along and if you get it wrong the first time, you do it again until you get it right. No one is going to help you out. No one cares that you're not a local. And no one is interested in your personal situation.

As grim as this opener might sound, I still rate this as one of the best places in the world. I have totally fallen in love with this city and it's personality. The fact that things are so fast-paced and people seem cold is exactly what drives you to figure things out on your own until you get it right. In physiology, the phrase 'fight-or-flight-response' is often used to describe the body's reaction and general adaptation to stressful situations and this is, psychologically, exactly what I have had to do in the past couple of days. I have only been here for a little under a week, but it feels as though I was born here now simply because I had to discover everything myself.

I have had a really great opening week and have accomplished so much in this week alone. I have totally mastered the New York City subway system, I have found a really nice apartment in Brooklyn, I have opened a US bank account, and I am on a US cellular network. Heading into orientation week I still need to move in to my apartment and get furniture for the place, but hopefully I can handle that smoothly.

I haven't had the opportunity - or the time - to do any touristy activities while here, but as time goes on I'll do my best to get around to doing that and posting about those experiences.

I'm really über excited to start classes this coming week and the enormous privilege and blessing this is has only just recently sunk in. I have had a little preview of the kind of things I'll be getting up to from a friend of mine who studied musical theatre as well. I'm going to be totally immersed in dance, music, voice instruction, and film craft. With that total immersion, though, comes little time for anything else apparently so I'll take this opportunity to apologise in advance if I don't come up for air very often. 

Tomorrow is my first Sunday in New York City and no prizes for guessing where I'll be headed in the morning: CHURCH! I have a short list of 3 churches which I will be visiting before ultimately joining one. I am starting this week at Hillsong Church in Irving Plaza which is cool because I have already met a volunteer from there on the streets of Manhattan during random conversation. Coincidence? Maybe not.

Untill next time...