YoungArts: a week of self discovery and sub-par food

As I drag my 65-pound piece luggage out of the elevator and into the ballroom level of the Miami Hilton, my body slows to a stop with hesitation. Are all of my monologues and songs ready? Who will my roommate be? Is everyone going to be better than me? How am I even here? The questions fade away however when I am greeted by a friendly face with a nametag that says “Resident Advisor.”“Hey! Welcome to National YoungArts week! You looked a little scared coming out of that elevator. Just remember, you are here for a reason. You were one of 150 young artists selected from a pool of over 12,000 applicants nation-wide. Don’t let anything knock your confidence.” With that reminder, I comfortably took the plunge into what would turn out to be the most life-changing seven days of my life. To start off, I want to apologize if I sound extremely pretentious in the coming paragraphs. I will be going on and on about how YoungArts “changed my life” and how I “learned so much about myself as an artist.” I will be talking about how inspirational it was to be surrounded by so much young talent and will be gushing about the new found friendships I made. But all of this praise about the past seven days is not unjustified. YoungArts unlocked a new found self acceptance and allowed me to grow as an artist in the hands of unparalleled mentors. The National YoungArts Foundation was established in 1981 by Lin and Ted Arison, (otherwise known as the founding owners of Carnival Cruise.) On their website, YoungArts says that their mission is to “identify and nurture the most accomplished young artists in the visual, literary, design and performing arts and assist them at critical junctures in their educational and professional development.” Every year, thousands of American high school level students apply to YoungArts in each of their respective discipline: theatre, dance, writing, cinematic arts, classical voice, pop voice, classical instrumental, jazz instrumental, visual arts or design. Based off of their application, the winners are separated into three different levels: merit winner, honorable mention winner and national winner. Those that are named national winners are invited to participate in a week long program in Miami, Florida where they perform in showcases and work with established artists in their specific field. This year, out of over 12,000 total applicants, there were approximately 150 national winners. I was honored to be named one of 21 national winners in theatre. After just 24 hours at national YoungArts week, the 21 theatre students were bonded closer than any group of people I had ever been a part of. It was like we had known each other for years and were coming back together for a reunion. Every day, breakfast was at 8 a.m. and classes started at 9 a.m. After breakfast we would have movement class with our movement teacher who worked with us on understanding the physicality of ourselves and of the characters we would portray. One day we spent almost the entire class with hand-made African masks covering our faces, and our only instruction was to “be curious about everything.” Without the ability to alter our facial expressions, all of our curiosity went into the way we moved through the space. I started to understand the importance of the way we carry our bodies not only onstage, but out in the world too -- your physicality says so much about who you are.The theatre students had three incredible master teachers that worked with us throughout the seven days. In addition to the songs and monologues we each had sent in for our initial audition, the master teachers emailed each of us two weeks prior to this week and gave us new pieces they thought would match who we were as performers to have prepared. We worked in a masterclass setting: the 21 theatre students sat in two rows and one by one went up to work on one of their pieces. After performing their piece the first time, one of the master teachers would go up and work with them for approximately 15 minutes. As I sat and observed each student work with the master teachers, I realized that there was so much to be learned from watching another actor receive critique. There have been very few moments in my life where I’m able to just be an observer--to just sit and watch another actor’s process. I left YoungArts week with 10 pages of notes, most of which were techniques and lessons I had learned from watching others being worked with. For example, when working on our Shakespeare monologues, I watched as one of my master teachers worked with one of my peers on the importance of punctuation in Shakespeare. He taught us how to decode the punctuation: commas meant build on the phrase before, colons meant that the coming phrase was analytical, and a period meant the start of a new idea. I wasn’t being worked with personally when I learned this new system, however it’s one of the things that stuck with me the most after I went home.Every night, each discipline had their performance/showcase at the New World Symphony Stage. All of the winners were able to go watch the shows, and it was such a uniquely incredible feeling to be involved in a community of artists that were so overwhelmingly supportive of one another. The theatre show took place Tuesday, Jan. 4 and was livestreamed on the YoungArts website, making it available for friends and family back home to watch. Normally, in such a high pressure situation I would have been having mini panic attacks backstage leading up to my performance. However, our master teachers created a backstage environment that allowed for all of us to feed off of the focused and supportive energy of one another, making it the most memorable performance experience of my life. There was no negative energy, nothing but love and support. As well as our master teachers working with us everyday, we had many different guest teachers come in and work with us, some of which included actress Rosie Perez, director Michael Arden, actress Zuzanna Szadkowski, playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney and artistic director Robert Wilson. Each teacher offered new and interesting insight into their unique theatrical perspective. For example, Tarell Alvin McCraney (Royal Shakespeare Company artist in resident) was a brilliant Shakespeare scholar and worked with us on our Shakespeare monologues. Zuzanna Szadkowski gave a workshop about television and film auditions. Rosie Perez spoke with us about her struggles as a woman of color in the entertainment industry and inspired all of us to remain confident in a less-than-perfect audition setting. This week I began to understand something major about the art community. If you are an artist and you do not support the work of other artists, you are a walking contradiction. The art community faces hardships day in and day out. There is zero government funding for arts programs in many public schools in America. The arts are seen as an unstable career path; a risky field to dedicate one’s life to. If we as artists are constantly being unsupportive and not curious about the work that other artists are putting into the world, we are creating a community of narcissistic egos that care about nothing but the success of themselves. This is not to say that we shouldn’t be opinionated and critical of the work we see – opinions lead to growth – but rather we should remember the importance of curiosity and how no good can come from a group of people who are disinterested in the work of others. I encourage any young artist to apply to YoungArts while they can. Go to YoungArts.org for information about the 2017 application.