Season 4, Ep. 01

La La Grande. 

(See what I did there?)

It's awards season, yay. Some of you may not care, but this is where my nerdiness has always lied. Every year, whether it's the Golden Globes or the Oscars, I clear my day, I sit on that couch and watch E! live from the red carpet until it's time to switch to Vibe (NZ channel), to watch the actual ceremony. What beauty, what class and what spirit of unison, love and support. It is simply, in my opinion, a beautiful season of celebrating the Motion Pictures, the creators of our form of entertainment, and the talent standing in front of the cameras whom we find ourselves attaching or relating to for a long time. It's the arts. And they make our wold go around. Celebrate it. 

I am a little behind watching all the amazing movies that have been released pre-award season, just in time to earn a nomination, I am dying to watch Moonlight and Lion. But first, I had to start with the SO TALKED about, La La Land. It's been on my list to watch for three reasons: a) it is an original modern musical, b) I've always liked Emma Stone,  c) I rank 'Whiplash' as one of my favourite movies. Creator of Whiplash, Damien Chazelle is the brains behind La La Land.

I had been so desperate to watch a fresh, new musical. Here we are, thinking good musicals don't get produced anymore, it's just an accumulation of the old ones, or remake after remake, but good ol' Damien proves us wrong. Considering he worked on this story in 2010 but was struggling to get the movie picked up by a company, he has done a-okay since then. 

The movie is about an aspiring, struggling actress and a musician who meet under funny circumstances and fall in love in Los Angeles. We get to see their chemistry bloom into the ultimate romance and in the meantime, how they are both dealing with their attempts to rise to success. 

There are incredibly relatable moments in the film. How 'Mia', Emma Stone's character, deals with rejection, which is a situation Emma Stone herself relates to, as for a good three years before she booked her first film, she lived Mia's life. Chazelle reveals a little part of himself in the film when Mia gets encouraged to write her own play, her own story, a one-woman show. This was pretty much his move into showbiz, when he wrote Whiplash. Footnote, Damien Chazelle was a drummer. Emma's performance was simply and purely outstanding. She portrays the disappointment, the embarrassment and the struggle in such a realistic way, anyone can relate to. Especially those who are trying to make their way up into this industry. Her best moment, was when she tells Seb (Ryan Gosling's character), that she doesn't want to keep pursuing this any more and why. And the reasons behind it, are reasons for which many artists who dropped out of the industry, that wasn't making them happy anymore, can relate to, including myself. 

Sebastian's character deals with the struggle of bringing fresh life into a bygone genre of music. He is so passionate about jazz, he has his own dreams but at the same time, gets influenced even by Mia herself that this is a dead genre and he needs to find a way to revolutionise it. Therefore he gets sucked in a job that he doesn't particularly love because 'this is what the people want'. Seb lets his insecurities cause him to make decisions when his heart is not entirely in it, because it makes more sense to the public, or to society. A wonderful lesson to be learnt. We all know people around us who make the same decisions because that's what makes sense to society, but their hearts are not in it. When Mia says to him "people love watching people who do things they're passionate about", in order to encourage him to follow his true dream of opening his own Jazz club, this is a clear message Chazelle wants to convey to us. 
Chazelle himself struggled with success, he dealt with the rejection and the disappointment but found a fresh way to write about his passions. It has been a long journey for Chazelle, just like it is for 90% of today's successful people, but here we are today watching, paying for and awarding this man for writing about his own passions. Hashtag, lesson learnt.

Beautiful music, costumes, performances and an amazing marriage of the old, dapper Hollywood essence with today's modern and technology based era. Overall, totally worth the praise, the awards and the buzz over this awards' season. Go. Watch. 

Toodles,
                                                                           Katerina

Season 3, Ep. 02

The One With The Stage Challenge

Wow, here we are. My first taste of the so-called 'Stage Challenge'. For those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, Stage Challenge is a New Zealand National dance/show school competition. Students from all regions from the North and the South Island create a dance based showcase and compete against each other. Each region crowns a winner each week. Students are 100% responsible for creating their show. They create the story, choose the songs and choreograph it. They announce their team leaders plus they get a team together who will be in charge of costumes and make up and the set.

Teachers are pretty decorative at the start to be honest. We are just there to make sure there won't be any teenage drama over who gets the solo, and to avoid anyone ripping another's hairs off over who is the better...dancer, I guess? As time goes on and the dances are coming together, I guess a more expert eye is an asset to the team, in order to give them some constructive feedback as far as polishing their dances goes, staging them and getting into character. I feel honoured to have been asked to be that person. If you have just started following The Moo Point, I have been involved with theatre and dance since I was 6 years old. Having the kids respect that and take all the feedback into consideration was fantastic, and I suppose all this brought me closer with some students.

The actual day was a blast. We drove up to New Plymouth, the main city of our region, and spend the better part of 13 hours at the theatre. Staging, setting up, practicing, but most importantly, mingling with the competition, aka the other schools. I'm not gonna lie, I was expecting a bit of healthy rivalry to go on, some bitchy comments, picking on every little thing about each other, no, on the contrary, those kids were the epitome of support, unity and fun. Pretty much proves my point why I will always be so passionate about the performing arts. They are the epitome of being united and leaving your troubles at the door. The second we stepped foot at the theatre, they started having random dance offs in the middle of their changing area. Next thing you know they are all resting together, or having another dance off. 

The themes were completely free choice, therefore completely different from each other. The other schools went down the melodramatic route and created a showcase out of big life issues such as the refugee crisis or cancer. Our school decided to get in touch with their imagination and create a show based on that minimum chance there'll be a zombie apocalypse. Dead people, skeletons, zombies and eventually SATAN, all came together on stage for a bit of hip hop jiggle. But boy did they look amazing. And boy did they work hard. Pretty much until the last half hour before they went on stage they were practicing at the back. And what do I always say? Hard work pays off. Best choreography award, plus best costume and make up award. Not too shabby ae. I have never felt more proud of someone in my life so far to be honest with you. This is why this job is so fulfilling, this is why I love teaching. 

And how are you?

Season 2, Ep. 2

Italia Conti.

 No, I still speak English. Italia Conti is a name. A pretty well known name for the wider London crowd and for a specific artistic crowd of Britain. Aka, my drama school. Full name, Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. Founded by Ms Conti in 1910, with a line of successful, household names for alumni such as Judy Garland, Noel Coward, Peter Duncan, Naomi Campbell, Kelly Brook, Russel Brand, Martine McCutcheon, Sadie Frost, Pixie Lott, Leslie Phillips and of course moi. Har har har. Oh yeah it's a pretty good school. And I attended it in 2010. 100 years after it was found. Hashtag coincidence?

 Now, you must be wondering if Drama Schools are anything like in the movies. Pretty much. Same amount of drama, all of the loudness, all of the strenuous, hard work, same competitive spirit, same amount of bitchiness, love stories, heartbreaks, panic attacks, stories where you fall flat on your face and then rise to the occasion. And if you're wondering which of the above had happened to me, make that all of the above, minus maybe the love story. Sorry, nothing saucy here.

 BUT, when it comes to the competitive spirit, tick. Let's start with that. Number one. There's two types of competitive people. What I call, the good and the bad. The good, they learn to be competitive with themselves. They understand that at the end of the day we are all different, despite similarities, and we all have something different to bring to the table. So they make sure they beat their own version of themselves every day, and make the best out of who they are. Wise and noble ae. But I learnt first hand that this is and will always be and should be my type of competitive spirit. Of course we all have our bad competitive side, where we want to beat others by badmouthing, using strategies and schemes but what I've learnt, is that this competitive spirit, is short-term.

 What happens a lot at Drama Schools is favouritism. Or at least it happened in mine. Every minor showcase we were working on, suddenly more or less the same people would get the solos or the front line, or the best parts. Without auditioning. Nope. Teacher walked in, picked out 7-10 names, and say ''you get a solo, you get centre stage, you get this part", and that would be it. True story. And maybe, maybe, apologies for my slight bitchiness side here, but maybe, they weren't all that amazing or right for those parts, solos etc. Maybe, but hey, one woman's opinion. What did I do? Kept my head down, kept working on my skills and how to make them better. Lesson number two. Badmouthing, showing envy or getting bitchy is a vast waste of energy which leads to having no energy left for yourself and how you can become better. Trust me on this one.

 The end of the year, marked the major end of year show at London's Wimbledon theatre where we could invite not only family and friends but also agents and people from the industry. My year was assigned to a young teacher who used to give us singing lessons throughout the year, in order to create our performance. She was gonna be our director and vocal coach. The day we had our first meeting about our performance, she walked in and basically said "I don't care about favouritism, I don't believe in crap like that, either you are worth it or not and either you are right for the parts or not, you are all auditioning, you are all getting an equal chance to show me what you have". Finally some justice? Long story short, our performance was from the musical 'In The Heights', a Broadway show that had won a Tony Award that year for Best New Musical. Such a funky, fresh show with lots of energy and strong vocals. We all auditioned, I got the part. Ha. Hashtag, eyebrow flare. But that's not why I am telling this story. Besides, story is not over.

That was just the beginning. We had a couple of long months of rehearsals but over those two months, suddenly without realising I was starting to get some hate from some fellow chicks. Out of nowhere someone would put words in my mouth and rumours would start and I was getting attacked for saying something mean about someone when I really hadn't. Being bullied at Primary School, I kinda made sure I was never gonna end up being bitchy about anyone so believe me I was an innocent little shit getting attacked. Lol. And it never dawned on me then, that it was just because of the main part. I had the main part. Mmmm. Energy, wasted.
Anyway, no idea where these chicks are today and what they are up to, I learnt that those relationships were pretty fleeting for me. Hashtag sorry not sorry.

Be the big person. Grow every day, grow your best version of YOU every day. Haters gon'hate no matter what, where and when.

Next week, more drama, awesome teachers and my first panic attack.

Tootles.

Watch performance here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odEVoeiJHac

Season 1, Ep. 04

I Have A Dream. (A Song To Sing)

London. I grew up in Greece but I really GREW up in London. Which is why there probably will be a marathon of 'episodes' on the London chapter. Nevertheless, it was all a moo point. Or was it? 

I've been thinking about the blog's episodes. How many per season etc. American TV shows have had huge runs of around 24 episodes per season so far but suddenly the newest trend seems to be the way the British TV has been going on about their shows with a sad 8-12 episodes per season. But now it's a fact that Americans have made cool. Empire, Rush, True Detectice, Ray Donovan, 12 episodes max, make us thirsty for more. LOVE Ray Donovan by the way. So I thought I should keep up with the trend and keep each 'Moo' season to 12 episodes.
Anyhoo, I will be quick on this one, gotta a wedding to catch end of this week. My big -not fat at all- Greek sister's wedding. OH YEAH. Can you hear the bells?
Now, when was the last time you had a dream? Anything? Good. So here I am 16 and thirsty. Thirsty for many things that I wasn't even aware of. I just had an itch to move out and discover. I could not fit in my hometown. I tried. Nah. By 16 I had gone through the whole teaching phase, just like every other little girl (I reckon), where I would line up my stuffed toys at home and pretended I was their teacher. I went through the ballerina phase in my early teens, since my training was becoming more and more hard core, the ballet fever was rising by the minute, then there was the release of the movie 'Centre Stage', which just literally made me want to be like Maureen in the film, and try out at the American Ballet Academy. Jokes. But honestly, I was living and breathing dance for at least a couple of years. No life. Remember the 2004 Summer Olympic games in Athens? One of the biggest events in the history of Greece? People were so keen to go to down to Athens to be part of it and watch? Well I went abroad to do a summer ballet course instead and I ended up watching the games on TV during my sweet 16th. Fact. By the way, since 'Centre Stage' is an uber cult movie now that I think of it, and not many of you may know it, it is the film that established Zoe Saldana's career. Another fact. Yeah, we all love our Avatar girl.
Nevertheless, passion or no passion, I was shoved into competitive environments since a very young-and tender-age lol. Honestly, the whole reason why I chose the high school that I chose was solidly for its Drama Club. It was pretty popular in Thessaloniki. I remember I COULD NOT sleep before the entry exams. Hash-tag, dramatic story. I lost an eyebrow over it because of the stress. Aw, 11 year old stresses. To this day, the right eyebrow is still thinner than the left one. But I passed my entry exams, enrolled at the school and made it my MISSION to audition and get cast in the Drama Club productions by the age of 13 even though it was theoretically supposed to be a club for Seniors and students over 15 years old. Did I lose another eyebrow over it? Nah, but a few pimples later and the use of then popular group Atomic Kitten's  cover 'Eternal Flame' for my audition, I eventually became a young member at 13. Hash-tag bragging, hash-tag, show off.
So what were your biggest worries and your biggest stress when you were 12?And was it worth it? Yes, totes.
I haven't even gotten to the London part yet, meh, we could stay in Greece for few more episodes before we move. I told you I can ramble. This is gonna be one looong season. Apologies. Or not.

Here comes the ballet gallery.

 

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