Alexandra Billings is one of my best friends. I am grateful for her presence in my life every day. I feel the same way about her wife Chrisanne. I’ve watched with happiness (and no amazement at all) at all that has happened in her life in the last couple of years. She’s one of the regular cast members of the Amazon series Transparent. She’s become a professor of acting at CSU. She’s fabulous. In January, she hosted the Ovation Awards.
I wanted to share this clip with you. She makes a speech. Listen to her words. This is who she is. She is a leader.
Then she sings Radiohead’s “Creep.” It’s an epic performance. She’s overwhelming live, but you can get the feel of who she is, what she does, in this clip.
oh man, the shades of victory and despair, pride and sorrow she gets into this are incredible. I got chills when she ramped up in the second chorus and the transition between the songs was MASTERFUL. How lucky her students are. Thanks for sharing!
Jessie – I get chills too! How the entire song is expressed in her body. How she “runs” – bends over – reaches out – it’s just a tour de force. and she MEANS IT. that’s what’s so awe-inspiring. Seeing her perform live is something else – it’s even more powerful “in the room.”
I’ve sat in on her acting classes before. She’s an amazing teacher. She’s said she wouldn’t care if she never got to perform again but if she could never teach again – that would be the tragedy. They really are so lucky! One of her favorite students got cast in a small part in this next season of Transparent – and he will be playing her younger self in a flashback!! Amazing.
I learned who Alexandra Billings is from your posts, and I will be eternally grateful to you for that.
Creep is one of three songs that came out right around my freshman year of high school – right when I needed them the most to let me know that even if I was a misfit who would never live some John Hughes fantasy high school experience where you would discover that I really WAS pretty after Molly Ringwald took off my glasses and put some lipstick on me, at least I knew I wasn’t actually alone in my feelings of isolation and not fitting in. But I was still pretty ordinary where that was concerned. I wanted to be thinner/prettier/more athletic/less nerdy/less socially awkward. I can only imagine what kind of resonance that song has for those who have to come to grips with their bodies not matching who they are inside, and knowing that there is inherent risk in living authentically. I get – to some extent – that people can be apprehensive about things that they have limited experience with and understanding of, but I will never understand the hatred and ugliness that would drive someone to write slurs on bathroom stalls or harass and hurt people who are just trying to live their lives. I have to believe that things will get better, and that shows like Transparent and people like the students who covered the building in affirming, loving messages are proof that no matter how much hatred there is out there, love will win in the end.
Natalie – cosign all that you said. I have a tendency towards pessimism and Alex has helped me with that. I asked her wife Chrisanne how Alex kept her spirits up and Chrisanne said, “Alex is the definition of an optimist.” She really is.
She also believes in loving/forgiving the enemy. Not backing down. But forgiving. Opening up a space. Being an ambassador of kindness (her favorite word). She comes from a very conservative family. She knows how to slowly “break people down” – by being kind and polite and always being herself, showing them that there is nothing to fear. She takes the very hard road with this stuff.
You can see why her students love her so much!
and agreed in re: “Creep”. That came out after I was in high school – but I can totally understand why that song “hit” as hard as it did. Why Radiohead toured – on the strength of that hit – for 2 years straight, or something insane like that. Like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” it tapped into something archetypal in the misfit-teen experience – and continues to find audiences.
I love how Alex has chosen that song to perform. It gives me goosebumps.