Ep7 Dance, Venezuela China Culture Clash & Wet Socks - Carolina Minton Frias

Listen to the episode on Spotify

Automatically Transcribed With Podsqueeze

Luke 00:00:05  Welcome to episode seven. So today in the studio I have Carolina. Hello. I don't know your second name.

Carolina  00:00:12  Minton. Frias.

Luke 00:00:14  Minton.

Carolina  00:00:16  Yes. Yeah. It's Venezuelan. Last name. I'm British. Nice.

Luke 00:00:24  Okay, so I'm going to play you a piece of music, and I want you to tell me what that makes you think of. Any kind of ideas that thoughts that come into your mind. Okay, here we go.

Carolina  00:01:30  I really felt that in my heart. Do you know the book The Matchstick Girl? I read it in my childhood, and for some reason that very first section reminded me of it. It's a really sad book where it's this homeless girl trying to sell matchsticks, and I think she freezes to death in the end. Oh.

Luke 00:01:49  Spoiler alert.

Carolina  00:01:52  Or maybe she doesn't. That's my childhood memory of it.

Luke 00:01:55  Because it's so ironic. Because matchsticks. Great fire. Which creates warmth, right? Yes.

Carolina  00:02:00  I just envisioned the cold. And then some kind of cobblestone bridge and a ballet.

Carolina  00:02:08  I'm better like dancing than I am with words like a full on visual twirly piece with lifts and movement. It started off really dark and contemporary and grungy, and then it became ballet and flowery like spring.

Luke 00:02:26  Can you remember the piece of music in terms of where the spring ness was?

Carolina  00:02:30  I think in after two thirds you played one really high note.

Luke 00:02:35  And it went, what was it?

Carolina  00:02:42  Yeah, exactly. And that just felt like mint, like a breath of fresh air.

Luke 00:02:49  Okay. So you you up for telling me a story of some kind?

Carolina  00:02:52  Okay, cool. I just had a memory come back to me. I was camping in Oman with my family, and it was four in the morning. I was five years old and my dad woke me up and I was like, what the fuck? Why are you waking me up this early? It's dark. And he just whispered, shh, Nina. Come on, be quiet. Follow me. And so I followed him and we, like army crawled to the beach, and just as the sun was rising, I saw all these little black dots emerging from the sand crawling towards the sea.

Carolina  00:03:29  And I realized it was these turtles hatching. It was really beautiful. I'll never forget it.

Luke 00:03:34  So what kind of place was it? You were camping in Oman?

Carolina  00:03:37  It was the desert. So it used to get to 50 degrees during the daytime. And at night time it would get really, really cold. I'd go camping every other weekend. We'd just go off into the desert, driving, finding random places, Oasis's beaches. We found a petrified forest once. It's just all the dead carbon that got Preserved over time from the woods. So basically, Oman is a tectonic plate that instead of sinking below, rised above. And it used to be it's like the Dead Sea. And so it's got a bunch of fossils and just loads of cool shit.

Luke 00:04:18  What did you feel when you when you experienced these turtles?

Carolina  00:04:20  I felt really warm inside. I guess I felt a little bit arrogant because I was really pissed off that he had woken me up so early and I was like, oh shit, I was wrong.

Carolina  00:04:31  I guess I sometimes reflect back on that, like, I don't know how it's going to turn out. Just trust in what's happening.

Luke 00:04:39  Okay? So I'm gonna just gonna see what happens.

Carolina  00:05:56  I feel like I'm floating. I feel like it's taking me a second to come back to reality After hearing that, I really felt the juxtaposition of like a wake up and then all the ding ding ding ding, like all the trickling down of turtles.

Luke 00:06:15  Yeah, I tried to get a sense of, what is it, sneak? Do you think that came across?

Carolina  00:06:21  Yeah, definitely. I felt tense, just that feeling that I had, it was just a bit like oh the army crawling at four in the morning. What is this. And then just that release at the end.

Luke 00:06:37  I was kind of go for something surprising. You wouldn't expect it. And something magical. I tried to get the sense of guilt at the end.

Carolina  00:06:44  Yeah.

Luke 00:06:45  Did you feel like anything was missing?

Carolina  00:06:47  I guess the sun rising.

Luke 00:06:49  Yeah. Okay. The sun had risen by the time the turtles were out.

Carolina  00:06:53  The sun started rising right as we arrived. And that's when I realized what was happening.

Luke 00:06:59  So sun rising. How do.

Carolina  00:07:01  I play the sun rising.

Luke 00:07:03  Over a cold desert.

Carolina  00:07:04  Right? A cold desert beach? Yeah. Okay.

Carolina 00:07:30  I.

Luke 00:07:30  Was using the classic harmonic minor scale again. We've been talking about this ever since. Like Lawrence of Arabia. That's become like the the the go to desert sound. You know. When I run out of ideas with that sort of vibe, I just resort to classics.

Carolina  00:07:47  Yeah.

Luke 00:07:48  So another story? Yeah.

Carolina  00:07:53  okay. The first thing that came to mind was a time when I felt like running away from home. And I had my dog with me because my dad had given me our dog so that I wouldn't run away from home. I was like 11, so I was just being a dramatic child, and I just ran to the playground and hid in the playground with my dog and stayed there for a few hours, and after some time came home and ate dinner and it was all fine.

Carolina  00:08:25  I was upset that we'd moved.

Luke 00:08:27  I would see, yeah.

Carolina  00:08:28  And I'd left all my friends.

Luke 00:08:30  Can you describe what it was like in Beijing when you were that old?

Carolina  00:08:33  When I first moved there, it was quite a culture shock because I'd never seen snow before. I'd only ever lived in hot countries like Oman and Thailand, Philippines, Venezuela. And we moved to Beijing in the dead of winter. And I was fucking freezing. And also we got moved into this compound where they put all the foreigners, and it was a gated community, which I'd never lived in a gated community before either, but felt very official. And we got a military welcome where the guards were thumping their feet, and I was I was 7 or 8 when we moved and the Olympics happened as well. So there was lots and lots of construction going on.

Luke 00:09:16  It was quite controversial, wasn't it, that construction for the Olympics?

Carolina  00:09:20  Yeah, it really was, because they had to knock down a lot of hutongs. And a hutong is traditionally known as a Chinese like old and straight, but it's where all of the village and communities used to be.

Carolina  00:09:34  And so imagine massive communities just destroyed and apartments built just so the city looks more pristine.

Luke 00:09:41  It's madness.

Carolina  00:09:42  Yeah.

Luke 00:09:43  I think the best thing to do is break it down into different sections. Yeah. So you've got this moving there. You've got the sense of alienation, I'm guessing of it. Yeah. And also military presence. And then you've got you running away. Yeah. Okay. Here we go. Wow, that was quite tricky actually.

Carolina  00:11:37  I really felt my dog snowy. Really? Oh, wow. I don't know if that was your intention. I really felt her comfort.

Luke 00:11:44  So did that work for you?

Carolina  00:11:45  Yeah, I'm just picturing, like, little me running off to this playground, sulking like I have no friends. Why did we move to this crazy country? And just being a bit overwhelmed and hypersensitive and aware of everything and taking all of it in and feeling heavy stuff. I really felt that come across in the piece, but then also, you know, releasing it where it gets lighter at the end.

Luke 00:12:13  Do you think the music reflected Beijing at that time?

Carolina  00:12:18  Definitely reflected my perception of Beijing at the time.

Luke 00:12:22  And what was it about that you found reflected it?

Carolina  00:12:26  Kind of the heavier tones, how you you transition from heavy to like heavy, heavy light. You also had a lot of repetition. I felt that in the stomps that greeted us when we arrived.

Luke 00:12:41  Yeah. I was trying to get the military presence, that snare drum fanfare kind of idea, which is quite tricky on the piano. Yes, I realize.

Carolina  00:12:49  How did you find it?

Luke 00:12:51  I was just thinking about different vibes, different points in the story. So I went along. Whenever I think of Chinese music, it's always got these parallel fourths.

Carolina  00:13:06  Yeah, you do get that a lot in Chinese opera. Now, now that you mention it, in hindsight, I see that when.

Luke 00:13:14  I think the interesting thing about this podcast is because I haven't studied Chinese music at all, I know almost nothing about it and having to access your limited knowledge of something instantly.

Luke 00:13:26  It's quite an interesting exercise to do. One last story, you think?

Carolina  00:13:33  I'm trying to think. Another story I just remembered there was this river in my school. Like a little tiny koi river in high school, and we had a little bridge across it. I was running late for class, and I didn't step on the bridge. I just fell straight into the water. And then I was just walking around high school for the rest of the day with soggy feet. Oh no, I know. Then the bridge was like a little square stone koi fish. River by the bamboo But gardens. My school was hella fancy. It was with my best friend Ren and he just, like, pissed himself laughing at me. And I felt a little bit proud because I associated my personality as being goofy. This fits my character that I play at school, and so I played it up a little bit. But then on the inside I was like, I wet feet and wet socks. This isn't comfortable.

Luke 00:14:35  All right, let me see.

Luke 00:15:54  For that I was going for it's all fine with your friends. And then suddenly it's. Oh. Oh, no. The movement. It's imagining this kind of waddling walk that you do when you've got wet socks and wet shoes, and it's kind of uncomfortable, but it's not dangerous. And I think there's an interesting distinction in music. This isn't a life threatening situation. You don't feel fear. Yeah, but it's just a bit awkward.

Carolina  00:16:17  It felt playful. You really, really captured that as well. And I felt also in the beginning it kind of sounded a bit like the river flowing.

Luke 00:16:25  High, right? Yeah.

Carolina  00:16:26  It was just like, whoa. And then it was like splash, fall. I don't.

Luke 00:16:31  Know if this came across in the music, but it's funny that it's a posh ornamental garden.

Carolina  00:16:37  Like a expensive institution. Posh river. I feel like it came across, especially in the end, where it was like doing a doodle in it.

Luke 00:16:48  Yeah, I might have been overthinking it a bit to start with.

Luke 00:16:51  And then I thought, you know, this is just turn it into some sort of comic thing. I tend to exaggerate things sometimes a bit. It makes it easier. Instead of just a bit of wet feet, you've got like just mud and you're doing this ridiculous walk around.

Carolina  00:17:06  That's kind of how it felt, though, at least in my head.

Luke 00:17:14  You want to tell a story about your fear of the dog?

Carolina  00:17:17  I could. When I go upstairs, I turn the lights off downstairs, and I have to walk up the stairs in the dark. And I always feel like there's something following me. I just, like, flip it off. Like I hold my middle finger behind my back and just tell myself, don't run because it'll make you fall. If I ran fast, then that would be like giving in to the fear. And so I pretend that I'm not afraid. Even though I'm afraid. And I get up the stairs really slowly. I get into my room and then I close the door and I'm like, you're not welcome here.

Carolina  00:17:51  This is my safe space. Those stairs feel haunted, though, like there's two mirrors facing each other. And in China, that's bad Feng shui. I really don't like it. Kind of reminds me of the long mirror in Spider-Man with the Green Goblin. I look in it and I'm looking back at up myself. Oh, no.

Luke 00:18:12  Oh, wow. Okay, that's quite an interesting musical idea. I probably get to start with when the lights on. Everything's all right. And then the light goes off. This weird experience.

Carolina  00:19:42  Safe. It's in the room now. Yeah, I did feel a bit genuinely scary. Really? Yeah.

Luke 00:19:48  Did you get the sense of the mirror?

Carolina  00:19:50  I got the sense of going up the stairs and not wanting to look in the mirror.

Luke 00:19:56  Infinite mirror.

Carolina  00:19:57  Yeah.

Luke 00:19:59  With the two mirrors to try and get that effect. Like using a kind of delay. And then because you've got two mirrors there's like a sense of the delay doesn't ever disappear. So you get this kind of nightmare effect.

Carolina  00:20:11  I felt that I didn't realize you were doing the mirror's imaging each other. For me, it felt like being trapped by the mirrors and not wanting to look in them. But I got that feeling from your intention where I was just like, oh, I'm stuck and just keep moving. Don't look.

Luke 00:20:33  So what did you get out of this podcast?

Carolina  00:20:35  So at the moment I'm getting back into choreographing dance and I just got out really paying attention to the story that music can tell and how I can add to it with dance, and how I can use storytelling and different motifs in my artistry, trying to be like, how do I choreograph again? Because I haven't done it in years, and just seeing you compose, it just clicked for me like, oh, this is how you share a story. It's been amazing. Thank you so much.

Luke 00:21:06  All right. It's a pleasure. Join us next week for another episode of Impro Pod. Thanks for listening.