So the drum class has been going really well. Class size has been small, which means people get a lot of attention, but we also move along quite quickly. Primarily what we're doing is taking about 3-4 primary rhythms and exploring how to orchestrate these with our instrumentation. It's a fairly straightforward set up - a big bass drum (a large plastic trash can), and a smaller bass drum (ditto); buckets for the high-end drum sound, and then shakers, bells, what have you.

The concept of (appearing to) go in two different directions at once gives some intersting tension - in performance as well as music.  In an exercise with Dijana Milosevic of DAH Theatre, we ran around the room then had to freeze - and had to balance our body so that it was holding potential energy aimed in two directions at the same time.  (A simple image of this would be a ballet dancer bent forward, lifting her leg backwards while raising her arm in front of her.  Believe me, none of us looked like that...).

This double direction concept came up again this winter during Noh training.  While the concept forms a fundamental part of even how you stand still, you see it most dramatically in some of the movements where an actor slides backwards while opening his or her arms.