Finding True North | Student Blog

I am now on my final year of training at Juilliard.

It is only the second week of September and my class (Group 48) has already finished 3 plays at the Juilliard Playwright’s Festival. The rest of the Juilliard Drama community was only easing back into the school just as we were at our fourth week back into the program. By September 10, the week after the closing of the Playwrights’ Festival, we eased into technique classes once again.

In our first Alexander Technique group class of the year, I lay on the floor to do my self-lesson guided by Carolyn Serota after already a series of on-camera classes outside of the Juilliard building. As I listened to Carolyn’s deep and soothing voice encouraging us to yield to the floor, I realized that I will really, truly, miss this building and the community in it. How grounding it was to hear Carolyn speak about the beauty of not-knowing and curiosity after already being bombarded with information about “The Real World.” We were reminded about the spirit of investigation and the willingness to “not-know” that we need to take on in our processes. If we approach each new undertaking in this way, it will help carry us into the next phase.

Not long before this Alexander Technique class, we heard newly-appointed Artistic Director Evan Yionoulis and long-time Associate Director of the Drama Division Richard Feldman speak during a meeting with our group. As they spoke about the craft, the importance of training, and the importance of this final year, it reminded me of why I wanted to be part of this community and how I felt that being here would help me walk towards the person I wanted to become. It was also then that I realized that I am not yet that person, that it was easy to lose the thread of what made me fall in love with the process that involves genuine human and artistic investigation when I was entrenched in the business part of the profession.

To think that a few weeks ago, I dreaded coming back to school in fear of facing the same people and triggers once again, only to be reminded about how this space was a place for me to investigate and express my deepest wounds in order to heal and to grow. The Juilliard building will be a physical reminder of an intangible “artistic home” within myself that I will be in touch with as a source of grounding in the profession.

This is what I hope to internalize in a deeper way in my final year of training. The willingness and humility to not-know, to soften rather than to tense, to investigate rather than to push. It is easy to lose sight of integrity when the industry seems to encourage a contradictory way of being. While the training does not encourage any form of “cementing,” I hope to strengthen my inner artistic compass enough to withstand the many temptations that come my way in my career.

I am profoundly and deeply aware of how Juilliard has changed my life forever, and I would also like to use this final year of training to be present in each phase and to make each day an offering of gratitude to the universe.

REGINA DE VERA

GROUP 48

QUEZON CITY, PHILIPPINES