We are so pleased to announce that we have a new ensemble member....Kristian Sorensen! We thought we would let him introduce himself. Read his delightful blog below to find out a little more about the newest ItW family member.
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When I watch children, I get envious. They learn an amazing amount of information in such a short span of time! Kids are constantly reassessing everything and everyone, hungry to soak in and receive all of the tiny impulses that the world around them offers. Kids can scream at the top of their lungs or let out a laugh so infectious that it racks up millions of views on social media. They are imaginative, infectious, hyperactive, and uninhibited; they are magnetic.
When I was in the first grade, I met my best friend at recess. Within twenty minutes, we became inseparable (kids move quickly, remember?). In the coming years, we would give each other nicknames, create our own spy company, deem ourselves the neighborhood ghost watch, and sleep with Walkie Talkies under our pillows so that we could say goodnight. My childhood was a constant series of these incredible exchanges:
Hey!
I have an idea!
Let’s do it!
I saw a ghost in that window!
Me too!
This mud puddle is actually full of crocodiles!
And this rope is a vine!
And you get ten points if you jump from that branch!
Want to spray that bee-hive with the hose?!
As adults, the walls of inhibition thicken around us. Phone and computer screens pull us down and into a two-dimensional world. We have been socialized. We are taught to be strong, unemotional, and to provide more answers than questions. Instead of exchanging energy and imagination, we begin to exchange money and materials. These things are more tangible – more understandable. Less fun.
As an actor, I am always trying to find the balance between my inner child and my adult self (yes to the puddle, no to the bee-hive). I am on the never-ending mission to coax out and invite these spontaneous moments of communion that often leave me feeling vulnerable and electric. They are why I keep coming back to the studio and to the theatre. They are what remind me of my inner six-year-old and, simultaneously, they are what make me feel like a true “grown up”.
For me, creating theatre and DJing are a rebellion. They are a refusal to stop exploring the unknowns that were so accessible to me as a child. They are a time machine back to that freedom and an attempt to remind others that we can still learn so much from each other. I am excited to join In The Water Theatre and to dare the spirit of exchange that I feel can be so easily forgotten in our society. How do we insist on taking each other to new places in the spirit of growth and learning? What are our adult/artistic versions of crocodile and mud puddle-proposals? How can we truly give and take, listen and receive, in the creation of our work and in the sharing of our work? How can that exchange be as simple and as welcome as it was at recess?
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