"I say stop being perfect…" and The National Film Actors Academy of Denmark
As I’ve said before, I write when I feel like it. That’s why I’m writing now, and why I haven’t been writing for a long time.
Some of you know that I am away from home attending what we, in Denmark, call a ‘folk high school’ (højskole). Which sounds really boring when translated, but it’s a really fantastic idea. The idea is that you attend this kind of school for a couple of months and here you can submerge yourself in all kinds of different subjects (depending on the school). What I choose, is of course a school which focuses on ‘acting for film’. We are now halfway through our three months, which is how long the course is. And now here comes the part that I really wanna tell you about:
The course which I’m taking is a kind of preparation for ‘The National Film Actors Academy of Denmark’. Wow, such a grand name when translated! So now, halfway through the course, we have a workshop with Kenneth Carmohn, who started the Academy. This workshop just started today. We started out, talking about reaching your goal, and being healthy in body and mind and so on… We haven’t really done any acting yet, not that it matters, course I’m intriged by the other things as well, but we did this exercise where all we had to do was to sit on front of everybody, look into their eyes, and breathe, and hold our breaths when told to, and just stay in ourselves. So, when I got up there, I did this, and Kenneth didn’t even get to the ‘hold your breath’ part untill he stopped, and had two girls sit on the floor on each side of me and caress my arms and thigh. I started again, and this time I did the exercise with the ‘hold your breath’ part untill he stopped it again and told the two girls to stand beside me, caress my arms/shoulder and take turns to kiss me on my cheeks. I did the exercise again untill Kenneth said thank you and told the girls that they could have a seat. He then asked the class for what they saw, someone said that it looked as if it was easier for me to relax, with the girls there, and I felt that too, and then Kenneth said that I had a certain vulnerability, that I didn’t allow myself to show, and that the Lucas that I see is not the Lucas I am. And I felt what he said was true, cause I could feel the sincere kisses on my cheeks, but I was too focused on my breathing that I didn’t let it in, I didn’t let it hit me. He told me that he would have an eye out for me the following days when we did exercises, so I could work on being me, showing me, and feeling me. The fact that he said that made me really reliefed, cause I apparently need some help in this area. It really hit me what he said, and I came to think about if it’s just up here, or if it’s in my life back home too. Cause the weekend when Anna visited, I really felt home in my body again, she really grounded me, and I could REALLY relax.
Later that same day, I made a realization, which was the following; when we’re doing a exercize in class, and it’s my turn to get on the floor, and this concerns pretty much every exercise, my goal, and what I hope to hear the teacher say is something like “Wow Lucas, that was perfection, I got nothing to say, you hit the spot…” and after realizing that was my goal, I can now let that go. Cause that day will never come, there will always be something to work with, and I could imagine how frustrated I would get if that really happened, flattered, of course, but then frustrated, cause there’s always something.
The rest of the time with Kenneth on the workshop was really giving, and just made me realize how good it would be for me to be accepted in to the academy!
The rest of the workshop went really well, I really enjoy the company of Kenneth and his assistant Jesper, two great guys! And I really felt that I progressed in getting to know me. And it was so inspirering to see everybody in the class really work hard and getting somewhere where they weren’t afraid of being themselves. I’m really proud of all my classmates!
I dont’ really know what else to write, so I’ll stop right here… Thanks for listening!
“Hey, what can I do… It’s reality!”
Lucas Alexander