Isabel passed through town this week from Portugal on her way to Berlin. She arrives again tomorrow for seven days before going home for several weeks. It's great to see her. She's beautiful and looks so happy. Tuesday she stopped by school at the end of my classes to see Thomas (the school founder) and several of the second-years. Some of my classmates also got to meet her, which some found confusing and others intriguing. After asking how old Isabel is, one of my classmates said I'm old enough to be her grandfather. (My classmate's, that is.) Not quite, I thought. I am by far the oldest in my class, though. The next-oldest student is 15-20 years younger. The youngest is 32 years younger than me. (The original title for my blog was "Old man plays the fool.") One of the early-20-somethings told me she wishes her dad would do something like this. I guess I can be the poster pop for the school's AARP recruiting, if they ever decide to do such a thing.
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The tone of the teaching changed this week. Every day we have 75-90 minutes of Improv (I can never quite remember the schedule, but I don't really have to), and the teachers always give some feedback on what you might have done better. But starting this week they've been interrupting people from the very beginning. An example: Today when Amy (one of the five Movement and Improv teachers) asked for someone to "open the space" and go first, everybody hesitated, so I volunteered. We're working with the neutral mask--a plain brown stiff leather mask that covers your whole face, large holes for eyes, no particular expression in the eyes or mouth--and doing stages of what they call "the fundamental journey"--from the ocean, through a forest, up and down a mountain, across a river and a plain, and ending in the desert. Today we were working our way across or through the river. Generally we face away from the audience while we put on the mask, then turn around when we're ready and begin.
As soon as I turned around to start, Amy stopped me. "No," she said. "That's not it. Try again." Four times this happened. "Nope." "There's no energy there. Show us something." "Still not it." I never even got close to the water's edge, and it was time for someone else to try. (I did get a second chance later, which was much more satisfying.)
In the first two or three weeks we never got stopped like that. Now, in Week 4, it's happening to somebody every day.
Actually I don't mind it. It's all part of the teaching, and we all learn from it. Plus, I don't consider myself an actor, so it doesn't cut into me to be told I'm not doing well. Generally people take it fine, but I imagine it must be harder for some who do see themselves as actors and are a lot younger, more vulnerable in that way.
I also decided back on Tuesday in Thomas's class that I'm going to approach the improvs differently than I had been. It occurred to me that I wasn't drawing on my life experience, and that's what I have a wealth of, especially in comparison with many of my classmates. I'm 53, a father, have been married for longer than probably most of my classmates have been alive, have lived through the death of both my parents, was in ministry for almost 20 years. I have a lot to draw on. And so even if it's not exactly what the teachers are asking us to do, I decided to bring that experience into what I do, even if I'm the only one who knows I'm doing it. It's working pretty well--making the work more meaningful for me, anyway, and I do think I'm understanding what the teachers are getting at in a very different way than many of my classmates. Even if I'm a lot less talented--and a lot stiffer in the body--than so many others are.
The point the teachers are pushing, by the way, is that you have to have a reason for whatever you do. Or if reason is too intellectual, too heady, there has to be a why, an oomph, a desire beneath it. I can hear that many of my classmates aren't tuned into that yet. And I can see it, too. And yes, it was also what Amy was (not) seeing in my many non-starts today. This is hard, good, deep work. And a very bodily form of expression for it all. One of my subsequent posts should be called "It all comes from the hips." The pelvis, actually.
I feel like I've come a long way already. With an inexhaustible horizon of how far there is yet to go, of course, but still, this time has been productive already. The first week in our Acrobatics class--which is worth a blog entry in itself; maybe later ("It all lands on the neck (even though it's not supposed to)")--anyway, as I was saying, the first week in Acrobatics I was so distressed at how little I could do in comparison to others. There are some astounding athletes in my class. And while I'm fit for my age, so much of this whole experience is both physically and metaphorically about becoming more flexible and unlearning years of habits that have stiffened me. A classmate from India (who was also having difficulties in Acrobatics) helped me a lot that first Wednesday by saying, "It's not about getting it right. It's about seeing what your body can do." That perspective helped me get through the whole first week. Now, after some pretty severe plunges of the spirit during the first two weeks, I've been on a much more even keel for the past fortnight. (Gotta love some of these British words.)
So on I go. The stiff man is learning to bend. And to be resilient. And to ground himself.
More later.
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