"Know Who You Are" | Up with People Week 4

Title Reference: Know Who You Are from Moana

Week 4 has been BUSY. So busy that I haven’t done my daily journal ALL WEEK (which I’m marginally ashamed of…). As always, I’ll talk about our staging process and different host family/Colorado experiences I’ve had this week. In Up with People, we also had our first Community Action Day this week and I’ll go a little more in depth about what that is and what we did for it!

Staging and Other Up With People Activities

This week, we have really been narrowing down soloists and dancers for different numbers in the show. The workshops have become more intense and the pace is quickly increasing. We’ve already blocked most of the show and are going to be spending the majority of next week working through the show and getting it performance ready. Our first show is on Friday already! This process has gone by so quickly, but it has also been some of the most fun I’ve ever had. I’m still learning new things about myself each and every day and I can truly feel the growth in me since I’ve gotten here.

We had our first Study Abroad afternoon this week as well. It’s been a while since I’ve talked about it because most of the work since our first introductory week has been individual. During the session, we had a quick video call with our professor for our communication classes and went over some concepts from our studies for the week. We also had time to work on all of our assignments for the week! It was a good time, but I was also a little stressed because blocking the show was going on at the same time. Luckily, I was able to finish everything and rejoin the rest of the cast for blocking! Once we get on the road, Study Abroad Days will become more regular and it will look very similar to how our afternoon went this week.

As I mentioned earlier, we had our first Community Action day this week! Community Action is the Up with People way of talking about community service. In each community we enter, we will do various action in different places like schools and non-profits. This week in Denver we went to a place called Food Bank of the Rockies (www.foodbankrockies.org) and worked in various parts of the warehouse. I worked on an assembly line where we packaged supplemental nutrition for community members who were on a fixed-income or had mobility issues limiting their ability to get to grocery stores. Other members of the group sorted through donations to ensure the food was safe to send out, and some others were in the warehouse packing larger orders to be sent out to different local and national non-profit organizations. I had so much fun working together with my castmates and truly making an impact on some people in need in the Denver community. We packed over 500 boxes of food to be sent out, which equals over 15,000 pounds of food and will make over 12,000 meals!

In addition to ALL of that action we had some really serious topics that we talked about throughout the week. We had a diversity meeting at the beginning of the week where the cast began to discover a little more about each other and what truly makes us as diverse as we are. I can’t go into too much detail, but it became really emotional and I definitely felt our bond as a cast grow due to our ability to become vulnerable with one another. The next day, the Vice President of Up with People came in to talk about one of the songs we’re performing in the show called “Roller Coaster (Won’t Let You Go).” We learned the song addresses mental health and heard about the story behind why it was written in the first place, as well as the impact it has had on audiences since its been performed over the past few years. The song is so powerful and the cast has really latched onto the message and I am so excited to perform it in the show! So, it has truly been a packed week, but everything has been totally worth it.

Colorado and Host Family Experiences

On top of all that’s been going on with Up with People activities this week, it’s also been a very busy week with my host family! On Tuesday night, we left our rehearsal facility and went to the Colorado Avalanche (ice hockey) game. It’s the first time I’ve been to a professional hockey game that I wasn’t performing in (at ASU, our athletic band played at a few Arizona Coyotes games!). It was a super fun experience, and I forgot how much I loved watching hockey players act like giant babies over a tiny piece of plastic, haha. There was one night that we also played the card game hearts (which I had been avoiding, because my competitive side likes to come out), but it was a lot of fun! I think this week we are going to try out some other card games too! On Saturday evening, my host mom was nice enough to get our whole family tickets to see Cynthia Erivo perform with the Colorado Symphony. Anyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE Cynthia Erivo. She has such a unique voice and has been such an artistic inspiration for me since I discovered her. After the crazy week I’d had, I was starting to really feel a dip in energy and seeing her perform was just the spark I needed to recharge and get me through our last (and probably most intense) week of staging! This was truly a moment that I can now check off of my bucket list. In addition to that, I also got to visit some of my fraternity Brothers that attend the University of Colorado in Boulder. It was a great week.

Thanks so much for reading! I often post extra photos and more frequent updates on my Instagram account! I’d love if you’d follow me @quallzilla. Have a great week!