Mildly Narcissistic Introductory Post

               For those of you hoping that this blog would reveal some wisdom on how to wear insanely high heels and slaughter the masses, I’m sorry to say you may be in the wrong place. My name is Rachel Hoffpauir, and instead this blog is the means by which I am documenting my experience this summer at the SAFD National Stage Combat Workshop.

               To put this experience into context, here’s a brief history. I hail originally for Paden City, WV, and managed to discover my love of theatre around junior high, predominantly due to repeated exposure to the movie version of the musical Rent and a deep seated need to live like the people I saw on the TV. I lived in an area where, at the time, there wasn't a lot of exposure to the arts, and ended up transferring schools before my freshman year of high school in order to follow my interest in theatre. I eventually graduated top of my class, and was lucky enough to get thrown right into the world of professional theatre. I spent my first summer out of high school as an intern at a place called Theatre WV, an outdoor historical drama located in the southern part of the state. An amazing experience which exposed me to more advanced theatre training and the rigors of summer stock, it was also here that I first saw stage combat put into context. Of course I’d taken workshops at various theatre conferences and camps, but here was where I first saw, for lack of a more eloquent term, how AWESOME stage fighting could be.

My freshman year of college took place at West Virginia University, though I eventually transferred for Baldwin Wallace University after finding it to be better fit for where I wanted to take myself as an artist. The following summer, I worked as a company member at another outdoor drama, Trumpet in the Land, and became assistant fight captain after volunteering on a whim. Going into my first year at BW, I found myself being pulled in multiple directions (acting, singing, dancing, business, etc.), but struggled to find a through line, a sort of common denominator or specialty that could pull all of these experiences together within a liberal arts education. That’s when I turned to stage combat again. I started going to workshops on my own time, plus taking any opportunity I could through my department to learn more about the world of stage combat, and also sharpen my skills. I’ll discuss exactly why I felt the draw toward combat in another post, but to sum it all up, doing combat just felt right. In fall of this past year, I was lucky enough to be cast as Douglas and Mortimer in my department’s production of Henry IV Part One. In addition to fighting extensively within the show, I served as fight captain. Doing that show helped solidify my want to attend this workshop, and work to gain my proficiencies and Actor Combatant status within the SAFD.

So why am I blogging? First off, I’ve found that chronicling your adventures through journaling or blogging helps enhance an experience, and also gives you something to be responsible to while you in the middle of a journey. Most importantly, however, I am going into my senior year at BW, and as a part of our course of study, we are required to complete a capstone project. I have been blessed with the opportunity to fight choreograph for an upcoming devised theatre piece based on the themes in Romeo and Juliet. Requirements for the capstone project dictate that we keep a blog. Since I figured that my experience here at Nationals will influence a lot of what that project will eventually be, I've decided to start the blog early in order to incorporate it into the final product. Do I know what this blog will eventually be? The beauty of it is that I don’t know. Being that my eventual project will be a devised piece, it can go any way, but in the meantime, I intend to explore any topic that becomes of interest to me while I’m here. Off the top of my head, I hope to include musings on fighting styles, history of the medium, gender, and the idea of storytelling within violence, as well as associated research. I've sacrificed a lot to get to this place, so I’m excited to make the most of it in any way I can. I could post five times a day, or I could post once a week for all I know, but this being a new experience, I’m ready for anything. So, extremely loyal followers, I hope you’re ready to strap in and go on this journey with me because it’s time to stop being polite and start throwing down J Classes start tomorrow!