BWW Blog: January 2021

Hi a??,

I am so excited to be sharing with you my artistic college journey and connect with you through these paragraphs.

One year ago, a normal week in my life would look like this:

a-? Getting up at 6.45 am to get ready to my ballet classes

a-? Walk through the cold, snowy, heart-warming Toronto streets

a-? Arrive to my beloved Randolph College of the Performing arts

a-? Be there for 12 hours running with my friends from ballet to scene study, then my vocal lesson, ending with improv class or the class that was assigned for that day.

On the weekends I would go to Dundas Square and stand in front of the Ed Mirvish theatre, sometimes I would come in to see the show and sometimes I would just stand there realizing how lucky I was to study there, in a city full of art, theatre and music and visualizing me performing there.

The first weeks after the lockdown I thought "How are we supposed to do a Musical Theatre Program online...? There is no waaay." And here I am almost one year later. I am back in my hometown in Mexico, safe with my supportive family, attending to online school, singing and dancing through zoom.

The growth that I've had in these months is huge, and I think the key is that as a college community, my teachers, my friends and I, have been open to flow through this. We are all super supportive, sometimes with stressful Wi-fi delays, but we always have present why are we doing this, passion.

We have a platform on 365 classes where all of the documents, zoom links and contact information is there but we are all daylong on Zoom calls, which sometimes can be a bit overwhelming because acting training online is hard, but we are always listened and supported which gives me a lot of peace.

Honestly, I miss those days of being an International Student, getting to know the city, tasting different flavors, getting to know the culture of my friends and sharing with them some Spanish words in the hallways.

We are evolving, this artistic journey has been forced to do a switch to keep alive and I am so open for this, preparing myself as best as I can. I have realized that in the hardest times of humanity, art is there, the message is there and I want to be part of this storytelling.

-Claudia Quintero Franco, a lucky and passionate Mexican Girl.