Saturday, April 2, 2011

Parkour and Shakespeare

These two things have nothing in common except that they both occupied my afternoon. The head of our Dojo and I practiced parkour on campus, and then went to an outdoor showing of Romeo and Juliet.

Parkour is the art of moving swiftly and efficiently over obstacles. It involves a lot of jumping and climbing. We were both very careful not to try anything that would put us at risk. Anything involving movement and heights can be dangerous, but years of martial arts have given us a good awareness of the environment and what we are capable of. I am tired and sore, and have some scrapes on my hands, but we had fun and learned a lot. We still have a long way to go before we get really good, though.

The play was put on by a class that had some of his friends in it. It was different, but enjoyable. They were having fun with it. Both of Romeo's friends (Mercutio and Benvolio) were played by women, and they changed the lines so the characters were women. The actors were very physically expressive, so the production was lively and a little raunchy, just like it was intended.

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