"The goal is New York city" she said: Weekend: Central park, Avenue Q, The Woman in White, Christmas bazaar & snow!!

Here's my weekend:

Friday 'The contrast between being a child for a day and Avenue Q!':

I slept 8 hours! HALLELUJAH.

That morning, I decided I needed to do something new for myself.

I just needed to get out. I had finished all the preparation for my song interpretation class the night before.

Usually I don't get time to work on the new song until Friday morning, before my class starts at 12:30.

The work came easy to me, because it was a very known material I had been assigned. My song was 'In my life' (Cosette's song) from Les Miserables. Obviously, I know the lyrics off by heart to my favorite musical, and I have explored in how to perform it a gazillion times while going about my chores and plans back home in the apartment and on bike through Copenhagen.

Therefore, I could finish the work in time to hit the sheets early that night (meaning some time before midnight!), and I went to bed without setting an alarm; it was heaven.

Before closing my eyes I thought about what I should do for myself in the morning.

Something spontaneous.

I thought to myself that I wanted to see the Christmas decorations in the windows on 5th avenue, I wanted to see the lights hanging above the streets, and I wanted to take a walk in Central Park.

I hadn't been in the center of the city for weeks (and by the center of the city, I mean the area around Times square, where there is most life.. but then again there is always life and tons of people everywhere in New York!).

Last time I'd been to Central Park, only half of the leaves had turned. I went into the park and immediately started to breathe properly.

Sculptures by the entrance to Central Park,

by Columbus circle

Withered leaves were all over the ground in massive piles. Irresistible.

Before long, when I'd gotten the guts to act without having a care in the world about what people thought of me, I grabbed a huge pile of leaves and threw them into the air over my head.

Like a little child I swirled around and jumped into the leaves I'd just thrown into the air, skipping further on to the next pile on the other side of the park, while laughing loudly with excitement.

Then - oh my gosh - I found a play ground. It was raining and it was early morning, so no-one else was there. I had the play ground all for myself.

I realize that I am talking about this as if I had Disney world all to myself. The excitement was not far from that, just saying!

I went on the swings and flied for a couple of minutes, I walked the line with ballet style, and ran up the giant rocks taking in the view of the orange/brown/yellow/red tree tops feeling like the Queen of the world.

I had the time of my life. I just haven't 'played' since forever!

I also saw squirrels and birds really close, they let me take lots of pictures of them, without being scared of me. It always makes me very peaceful when non-tame animals are calm in my presence. It makes me feel like there's a visible gentle part of me.

If you'd been there and seen the huge grin on my face, I'm sure you'd think I was 5 years old. But I know that most of you would probably just smile, knowing that I haven't changed. I may have grown up, but I will never let the child grow out of me.

.. Actually - you will get to see a bit of my face:

After playing around for a while, I walked through the park seeing a couple of ice rinks, the lake (that hasn't frozen for the winter yet), and I saw a film set (pretty cool!).

The film guys are hiding from the rain!

This afternoon I had my first Tuesday rehearsal for the Christmas play at the corps.

It was incredible, when I arrived all the kids were gathered in a circle, ready to begin! So different from last week, where getting them to listen took up half of the time.

When they saw me they rushed to give me a hug and they wouldn't stop asking questions about what they were doing in the play?, what they could wear?, if they could sing and dance?

It's going well, but the schedule is very extreme - we have 4 weeks from now, and I have no idea how far into my original idea of the play from the script I wrote will be pursued in the end.

What I've always learnt about working with theatre and any kind of performance or production is, that you always make it till the time you need to!

It may not - no actually it never turns out the way you thought it did (that's just the world of theatre), but we will have something to show on the 17th of December, since we have a growing audience! ;)

My class mates want to support, and even Susan wants to arrange for the children of her corps to have a trip to the city for that.

I am equally very excited and very stressed about it! ;)

Today I got tickets for Avenue Q the musical! Yay! I have been to that theater 4 times, trying to get student rush tickets for it. It's off-Broadway, but it sure is popular!

Before the show we got a Starbucks - for the first time tasting the Christmas specials (well for me!), yay!!

I got a peppermint latte : )

Jessica

Red colors all over and the smell of cinnamon!

When we got to our seats we burst into laughter, amazed by the tickets we got for 26 dollars!! Ridiculously awesome!

The musical was amazing!! I didn't know much about the show or this production. I have heard a few of the songs from the musical by my fellow students in school, and I once sang an ensemble number in a showcase. There's a really good song that I like, and would like in my repertoire, 'A Fine, fine line'.

The extremely cool and unique thing about this musical is that they have puppets in the show. 'Live puppets' - actors are onstage with a puppet in their hand, and is the actor and voice of them. The puppets become so real because they're really good at controlling them, and when they speak to each other, the actors look into the other puppets eyes, not the other actor - so you never get the feeling that it's the two actors having a dialogue, but the actual puppets.

In the musical we follow the lives of a bunch of young characters who all live on Avenue Q in Brooklyn (this is in fact an actual street in Brooklyn - a fun fact is that in the playbill from the show one of the actors made a note saying she lives on Avenue Q in real life!).

The show is about what things you face when you grow up, having to take responsibility, interfere with the other sex or question your sexuality, discuss and argue about the society you are living in and think about your purpose in life.

It's very raw and realistic. There's no filter whatsoever, especially in the language. It questions taboo subjects like racism, homosexuality, porn and money.

But it's not in an uncomfortable way, but with such a thick layer of humor that you can't stop laughing at the ridiculousness and irony of the subject.

This was an AMAZING cast that gave so much energy. And all because of that, I felt the biggest rush after a show, that I've felt of any of the other shows I've seen here so far (I've seen: Chicago, Phantom of the Opera, The glass menagerie, Pippin, Cinderella, Jersey boys, Peter and the Starcatcher). Cinderella was beautiful and Pippin was breathtaking, but Avenue Q somehow did something special to me.

Maybe it was about when I saw the show too, but somehow Avenue Q just left me jaw-dropped, encouraging me to work harder to be on that stage and inspiring me to tell stories.

In the finale they sing a song, which says that "nothing is forever". It really made me think that this really isn't forever. And if I don't do my best with this huge opportunity I have now, then that's it. I've used up that one opportunity to put the best forward in me.

Whatever now is. You will never have the same now again.

Now should not be taken for granted.

I just want to take a second to send my deepest condolences to the Silfverberg family, who lost Erik a couple of nights ago. I was very shocked to hear about it, especially because he was so healthy and was so young (looked even younger). He was my accompanist a couple of times back home when I sang at the Valby corps.

The family has been in my thoughts a lot these days, and the officers at Hempstead citadel grieved when they heard the news.

"You will get through this" - quote, Max Lucado.

When me and Jessica got back to the Markle, - even though it was 11 at night! - we went to her room and listened to the full score all over again, while stretching and singing with teddy bears, pretending they were the muppets! - There is a funny video of me on facebook performing part of 'A fine, fine line' with Jessica's princess frog!

Singing along to the song 'I'm wearing no underwear today', we laughed at our behavior and joked about the fact that we might wake up tomorrow feeling like we need to pray.

Lol.

Saturday 'An awesome musical and Danish Christmas':

I slept till 8 am, oh Hallelujah again. I spoke with my mum this morning. She had fallen asleep on the couch the time she had planned to call, so I could only talk with her for a few minutes, before having to head down to breakfast.. but we will speak again Sunday afternoon - with the opportunity of a video chat, since I'm at the Wittenberg's. :)

We will talk about all the things she can bring for me - my skates for flying on the ice rinks of New York city all through this season, roller blades for chasing through Central Park in the spring, Farmors clothes and jewelry to wear with pride and love all year round, my Christmas decorations and things that I always go crazy with for hanging in my room.

I went to the library of performing arts to see a musical in their taped archive, 'A Woman in white'. Susan had introduced it to me, speaking of the time she saw it with Phil in London.

The show is by Andrew Lloyd Webber, but (embarassingly) not one I had heard of. It only ran on West End in London for 19 months, and 3 months here on Broadway.

I don't know why it wasn't very popular. Funny thing with Lloyd Webber's shows is that some of his musicals like Phantom of the Opera and Cats become enormously famous and other shows like Love never dies and Whistle down the wind run for a shorter period (and aren't even known by so many people I know!).

All there is to say about the musical is that I've found a new favorite role to put on my list of parts I wish to play! The part is for a century further ahead in my career though - after the younger leading parts Eponine, Belle, Christine, Lorry, Elphaba!

Marian is a very strong and brave character. The plot revolves around a love triangle, just like Eponine, Cosette and Marius. Only in The Woman in white, the stakes are raised to an even higher level. The obstacle in it is bigger, since Marian is in love with the same man as her sister.

Marian

I love the struggle in Marian's story, because it isn't easy for her to dream that the man is by her side - all along she also wants the best for her sister. The man is in love with Marian's sister (Laura), and she has to watch them blossom in their relationship.

In Les Miserables, Eponine is not as dependent on her relationship to Cosette. They have once been friends, but now that Marius loves Cosette and not her - she can choose to distance herself from Cosette more, to get less hurt.

Marian is such a faithful person who seems to have lived and breathed for her sister Laura, her whole life. Even though they are grown up women, she still works her hardest to make her sister's dreams come true. Being the big sister she feels responsible of her happiness, if she let go of that, she'd feel like she gave up on Laura.

But when she falls in love with the same man as Laura, this becomes more difficult..

She pulls Laura away from him, reminding her of the man her father has promised her away to. Marian then tells the man they both love to leave Laura and forget their love, because her hand has been promised to another man.

The musical takes a dark twist, when Laura reveals that the man she is married to is abusive of her, and it becomes clear that he only wanted to marry her because of her family money.

- Marian almost can't bear the weight of the guilt she feels, knowing that it's partly her fault her sister now lives in this hell, because she encouraged the planned marriage. She realizes where her selfish deeds has lead her. She will put her life on risk to save her sister. All is for Laura .. it always has been. The man she loves is for Laura too. She expresses this in a very soulful and driving dramatic song 'All for Laura'.

I don't want to give everything away, but the story just keeps getting more dramatic and tragic. There is a woman in white clothes who walks around the graveyard at night crying so that everyone in the town can hear. She lives in deep pain from an important secret that now weighs her soul so much. Everyone thinks she's a ghost, but it is soon revealed that her secret is related to Laura.

The women are alone in this tragic trap. The only man who could save them is the man Marian sent away ...

The story takes place in Victorian England times in the country side.

Understanding the status quo of the time period, the musical deals with a very important matter. The thematic choice in the story is showing women with such willpower, honesty and braveness.

There's so much character development. An interesting detail is that in an ironic sense, Marian is really the main character, since she opens and closes the show, we see a lot of things through her eyes, and it's her fight we follow to the end. Laura is a more vulnerable and sensitive woman, and whenever she takes a step forward in her character, it seems to be from Marian's work.

Marian is the one who saves them all in the end.

The extraordinary thing about the show is the choice of scenography. - There is none! Nothing onstage, and very few props. However, the scenic design has all been visualized from massive digital screens. The screens are the walls behind and on the sides of the stage. Not only do they create the background, they also move to the motion going on onstage - like running through the forest, opening a door walking through the graveyard. There is also a much more advanced opportunity of playing with the lights and adding color grades on screen, as opposed to a material scenography.

I could go on talking about the interesting themes of this musical, but I will save that till the time I work with the character Marian in school. Just after seeing the musical I made sure to get the sheet music for 'All for Laura', so I am ready to work with it, when the time comes.

...And the music is beautiful, very fantasy-like.

The musical is so good.

Around 5 pm I went with Josephine to a Christmas church bazaar in Brooklyn.

I din't know much about where it was or what there was to find.. basically, I just heard the word Christmas and I felt drawn to be a part of that atmosphere!

In the subway on my way there, there was a group of young guys singing 'We wish you a merry Christmas' - not as a performance or anything - but just to themselves for fun, not caring how much of the 'sound space' they took up of the subway, in relation to how many people it was stuffed with!

A man stepped into the subway. He was clearly drunk or high, because it felt natural for him to talk to everyone, make the whole subway hear him trying to charm a baby in a mother's arms, singing loudly to a song no-one could recognize and pushing his way through people to the middle of the train, not noticing the people he accidently squashed on his way.

A loud, but funny man. When he saw the group of young guys he laughed and seeked to have a conversation with them.

The young guys thought he was very interesting and asked him:

"Where do you work?"

"No where", he said.

"So what do you do for a living?"

"Nothing", he replied.

"You just walk around and try to make people smile?"

"Yes".

I thought that was pretty cute.

The awesome thing is, that behind me a photographer stood with his camera, and without people noticing it, he'd filmed most of what was going on in the subway. Maybe for fun, maybe for a documentary.

So as you can see, there are things all around me, that remind me that I'm in NEW YORK!

It's close to 6 pm, and I am so tired already. I could do a power nap! I haven't had time for power naps in weeks.. maybe that's what I should prioritize for next week.
They are just important, when you are active with voice, body and mind from 6 am to 11 pm every day. Period.

When I arrived at the Christmas bazaar, I realized it was a Danish arrangement. I'd had no idea! ..So honestly, it was the strangest thing ever to walk into a room hearing only Danish, Danish, Danish!

Red and white everywhere! I stepped into a room with kalenderlys, julekalender, juleklip, red hearts, stars and angels for hanging on the tree and Bodum tea pots. And downstairs there was a cafe with aebleskiver, rye bread, red cabbage, leverpostej, flaeskesteg, Haribo sweets, skolekridt, and red sausages.

It was like a Danish fairy had flown into a room and gone 'puff' with her magic wand - "Go Danish!". And just like that everyone around me were suddenly behaving like Danes, throwing jokes like Danes, eating like Danes, drinking (!) like Danes.

All the time I was there, I couldn't get used to it.

I had been so far away from all that for over 3 months, and without having missed any of these things, it was strange that this world should interfere with the new world I had moved to.. and in the midst of that I could see what I had been missing, if I had missed anything at all.

Danish aebleskiver!

Oh gosh, so even though I hadn't missed the food or being surrounded by the Danish

language... a part of my heart realized how I had missed the Danish cozyness.

I don't think I can explain what this is well enough.

This is something special you just don't find in other cultures.

The best part of the Danish culture is the Christmas traditions.

But I sure am looking forward to having my first American Christmas!

I am sitting in the Long Island rail road to Mineola station. I will be with the Wittenberg's for two nights, - so I will travel to the city Monday morning, going straight to school.. just like I did the last time I was here.

I am writing my assignment for my performance lab class. My thoughts and observations about the tape I saw with my performance on 'How could I ever know'.

I don't want to write a novel about my observations! But there is one interesting thing I noticed from watching myself. - Which is that as a performer you always need to give much more that you think you need to, and raise the stakes even higher than what you feel like you've already done. This song is probably one of the songs I've felt most engaged to, from all the songs I've worked with since I came to the school (probably about 15).

I created a Meisner exercise around this song, to make the 'moment before' stronger more personally connected.

- A 'moment before' in a song, is creating a clear image of what happens just before the song. It's like a punch line, so it makes it clearer to yourself and your audience why you are singing this song. More importantly why you have to sing this song, right now, right here.

The moment before is whatever image works for you, in order to engage yourself in the truth of the song.

It can be what happens to your character in the musical, but sometimes the circumstances are so far from your own reality, that you have to find a truth from your own life, that is similar to the obstacle of your character. -

I imagined that the whole song was a letter from my grandma who'd passed away. So the song was sung to me, but the reason I sang it was because she wasn't there to tell me herself.

My strong moment before was imagining that I saw the letter lying on my bed. I imagined that my granddad had found this letter under their bed in Portugal. Because he hadn't wanted to be near to the bed or be in that room at all, he'd only found the letter months after she died (so in real life, that would exactly be now).

I imagined that as the intro of the song played I saw this letter, and I opened it - taken aback by seeing the name of the sender - reading the letter slowly and thoroughly line for the first time.

To make this moment even more reliable for me, I found a real letter from my grandma that I made myself look at just before singing the song. The ironic thing is, that I had completely forgotten that she'd sent me this letter. This was one I recieved about 2 weeks after I came to New York.

In the letter she wrote: "My dearest Jasmin, I wish you so much luck that I can't even fit it on this post card!".

With the letter she had sent a mini towel with my first letter embroidered on. This was for wiping my sweat of my forehead in dance class.

This one line was enough to set me off and understand the true heartbreak of trying to connect with someone who's not there. (Which is what the whole song is about - Lily sings to her husband, trying to help him move on and send him her love... but he can't see or hear her.)

However, from watching my performance I saw half as much storytelling and feeling as I know I'd felt inside myself, when I sang it.

This is interesting, and something I will be working hard on for my next performance with the song (Monday afternoon!). I will be working with the song at Susan and Phil's corps after the church meeting tomorrow.

This evening, before a treat with tea by the fire, I stretched and worked out for 30 minutes or so. I am getting really strong. I can feel it carrying shopping bags and today I could lift up my window completely for the first time (it's a window that you need to glide up from the bottom, but it has been stuck for so long, probably because it needs oil on the edges).

I need so much more strength for ballet, so I will try not to let a day go by without working out.

... I am now sitting in the living room with Susan and Phil. Starring into the fire place and feeling peaceful.

Just my luck. I get to recharge from this week once more.

Candles are lit and it's snowing outside.

That's right - it's snowing, juhuuu!

Sunday 'A day of dance, cozyness and thanksgiving':

Sunday morning. As always peaceful and quiet. It's my favorite morning of the week.

At 9:30 we leave for church. Then there is bible study for an hour, before the 11 o'clock meeting. I will be stretching in that time before today though, because I have so much work to do. I REALLY need to work on my dance technique.

In every single dance class there is a detail my teacher corrects me for. Usually mistakes I have done loads of times before, and obviously haven't corrected well enough.

It makes it seem like I don't do my work - that I never practise dance at home.

It's not true, the mistakes are in my head all day long, and I try to correct them. I work on them, but once I get it right, it doesn't necessarily mean I get it right every time. The things have to be inhabited in the body over a longer time.

But even though I work on it outside school, I obviously don't work hard enough. Right now, my best is just not enough yet.

As I am writing this, I am shaking. It frustrates me that my body doesn't understand the things as fast as most of my class mates. I might also be shaking because Susan is sitting right next to me, watching my performance of 'How could I ever know'. The song still calls to a very vulnerable part of my heart.

Today while stretching in Susan's office, I re-experienced that when you stretch every day, you are able to pick up where you left from the day before. The stretches become more smooth and longer. It is safe to say that you can see yourself improve from every new day.

If you stretch only a couple of times a week or every once in a while, the stretch depends more on how your body feels that day, and you either improve or stay on the same spot you were last time.

This afternoon I had a short dance class with the children from the corps. It was so much fun! This is something Susan encouraged me to do, so I will be here as many Sundays to catch up on it. Maybe I can do performances with them here too!
- See how my mind keeps rolling over plans, and yet it hasn't understood the size of my calender yet!!

I found a new favorite song, one by Sara Bareilles called 'Breathe again'.

"What kind of heart doesn't look back? You're the air I'd kill to breathe. Out of breath I am left hoping some day, I'll breathe again."

This is exactly what I have felt all day.

I have had no appetite, felt exhausted, felt dizzy, and felt like I have a huge whole in my stomach.

I guess it's because I had to spend the Sunday thinking about what I am thankful for. And the thing I am most thankful for at the moment is someone who's death I still try to live with every day.

I am soo endlessly thankful for what strength, braveness and understanding God has brought forth in me. I remembered how big steps I've taken since I got here, even though I feel like I should take larger steps. I forgot how strong I've been these past months.

I forgot that I had so much to be thankful for.

But then I thought about how thankful I am for my grandma. What a treasure she was, what a joy, what a shelter, what a friend.

I thought about the summer nights in Portugal we sat by the dinner table long after the rest of the family had retired from the table and to their beds. There we sat with a glass of red wine and sometimes chocolate, pouring out our feelings to each other till 2, 3 or sometimes 4 am.

We would draw things on each others hands and arms with nivea creme, I'd sing to her or share some of my newest song lyrics, we'd talk about boys and growing up.. hhahahah and all of a sudden, she'd let out air and pretend I didn't hear it "oops" and we'd burst out laughing till the point we had tears in our eyes and our tummies hurt, and then at some point we'd always end up expressing our endless love to each other - she would sigh and say "I had NEVER in my dreams imagined to have such a relationship with my very first grandchild. You have no idea how special that is."

My grandma is the light. And she's always there in church.

A strong light streamed in from the big window at the meeting this morning. It was significant and beautiful.

I sat in the right hand side of the church on the first row.

The light was at the altar, but as the time drifted closer to noon, the light moved more and more to the right. By the end of the meeting it was right at my feet.

And it was in the dance room when I rehearsed after the church meeting.

My grandma is the light.

So that is what I give thanks for today.

But it makes me sad that she's not here, and that's why there's been a whole in my stomach all day.

I wonder if I will ever understand death.

- If you are tired of reading about this, it is either because you haven't experienced death before or that you have understood it, am I right? So if the last one is the case, you are welcome to respond to this post.

I know that this day is about giving thanks.

What my heart wants to say is that I am thankful that you are such a big part of my life and always have been, even though it's difficult not to have you on earth. The earth that we shared.

So every day I try to understand the place you are now, by reading the bible.

On that same postcard that I used as preparation for my performance of 'How could I ever know', the last thing you wrote to me was; "may God be with you".

It is ironic to think that you are with him now.

The God you prayed for to be with me, is the God I pray to to bring me closer to you.

Happy thanksgiving this Thursday. Remember to take note of what you are thankful for.

What else would we live for?

Here are a few pictures from Christmas decorations in New York: