“In fact, true reinvention happens on the inside more than on the outside.”
– Christine Kane

My week in Italy was part of a year-long vocal improvisation study course I am taking called All The Way In (ATWI 2010). (It is being funded by the MN State Arts Board – Thanks, Art Board!) One of my singing mentors, Rhiannon (yep, just one name like Prince or Madonna *smile*) is teaching this course. I met Rhiannon in 2003 (I think) at a weekend workshop in Madison, Wisconsin and the rest — as they say — is history.

It has been a little over four years since I last worked with Rhiannon in Hawaii. Since then, my life has changed … er … considerably.

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Back to Italy …

I arrived at the Pisa airport exhausted and overheated about 20 hours after leaving my doorstep in Mpls to learn it was 36 degrees … Celcius. In case you are wondering (I certainly was) 36˚C is about 97 degrees. I didn’t know this at the time, I just knew I was hot, which is why I don’t have any pictures of Pisa.

That, and the fact, I was trying not to look like a total tourist and I was afraid to leave the gate for fear I might miss Kees (pronounced Kase) and Mony with whom I was riding in a rental car to Il Poderino.  (I did see the Leaning Tower from the window on my flight home but I didn’t get a picture of that either.)

We have to bless Kees for having taken the time to learn who all the singers were before coming to the workshop, because I realized as I was standing (and sweating) at the airport that I had no idea what the folks I was meeting looked like (duh). But, ever prepared, I found a marker and a piece of paper and crafted a home-made sign and stayed close to the gate.

Two hours later, Kees and Mony came through the gate, Kees called my name and we laughed, hugged and greeted each other like old friends.

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We stopped for gas (after a couple of detours) so Kees could fill up and ask directions. Turns out, not one of us actually knew how to get to Il Poderino. We zipped down the highway(?) at unknown speeds, but on the right-hand side of the road. We took a few more detours at the end of the trip through some little town that wasn’t Casale Marittimo (where I would spend the week). In a case of the kind of coincidences and magic that occur when I enter the world of improv, we passed Rhiannon walking out of town toward Il Poderino.

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Over the next three days, the rest of our group of 21 singers – 17 participants and 3 co-pilots, plus Rhiannon — arrived.

• Costanza and Marilena (Italy)
• Eva, Jürg, Alessandro, Noga, Estheranna and Noemi (Switzerland)
• Henk (Belgium)
• Sarah, Rahel, Paula, Barbara and Johanna (Germany)
• Nicoline, along with Kees and Mony (Netherlands)
• Chantal (Canada)
• Cherilynn, Rhiannon and me (US)

I had a lovely dinner and conversation with my friend A last night. She had been in Hawaii with Rhiannon two weeks before I went to Italy for the first week of All the Way In (the year-long vocal improv study course I’m taking).

What fun we had! We laughed with each other about how difficult it can be to integrate the experiences the weeks with Rhiannon can bring and how challenging it can be to effectively share what (exactly) happened. A said to me when someone asks her “How was Hawaii?,” she thinks to herself, Do you got an hour? Our “dinner” lasted three hours and we talked the entire time.

We shared some of the insights we had about ourselves and our groups, traded stories and names of singers (Oh yes! I know her!) and marveled at the power of the community Rhiannon is creating. How, we the singers who have studied with her, feel connected, not only to her, but to each other.

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Speaking of connections …

My new young singer friend Noemi (from Switzerland) sent this to the All the Way In singers this week. It sums up a lot of how the week in Italy felt.

In a Deep Connectedness:

“You see the smile

you feel the warmth

you sense the smell

and below, deep down

where empathy finds its roots

and the wave gets one

and source meets source

in that deep flow

we are connected

sometimes we see the light.”

– by Johannes Erhardt