The “Call Me Ishwhale” dance is the climax of the story. In Act 2 I deconstruct the elements of this dance i.e. the costumes, props, movements, and my five minute version of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

Yesterday in Leonard’s class I worked on two bits involving a costume and a prop using mime and clowning:

The first bit is clowning stage business finding Ishmael’s coat and putting in on upside down and backwards.

then I swing right, left then full circle and get it on correctly over my head.

It was inspired by masterful clown, Bill Irwin from “The Regard of Flight” seen here at 12 minutes 30 seconds in…

The second bit is looking for a ship – finding the chair, sitting in it and rowing, “naw, that’s not a ship, that’s a rowboat” getting up picking up the chair, turning and twisting it then putting it down upside down and askew, “that’s not a ship” putting it upright back to the audience then climbing ropes up to the crow’s nest, “there’s a seagull” then “this is a ship!”

I especially like the second bit because with Leonard’s genius-level and classmate Bernard Vash’s help, the audience really sees the ship created out of Sioux’s imagination. It shows the power of imagination. When I comes back at the finale, it will really be fun for the audience. It took a lot of sweat and repetition and faith to get these bits but so exciting, I hardly noticed how much work it was. Fun times!