One more post before I leave London for the holidays. I've been immensely enjoying the market culture here. Every weekend, and sometimes during the week too, there are open-air markets. Food markets, flower markets, any-variety-of-goods markets. Streets are blocked off for them. Covered courtyards are home to them. At the Greenwich market, buskers play classical music. At Covent Garden opera singers appropriate a staircase and sing to one another. At a flower market in Hackney a young adolescent auditions "Two for a fiver" in his boyish tenor, anticipating the day he'll have his father's baritone. In the East Ham market I couldn't even understand what a Cockney barker was saying.
The Portobello Road market is intimate and eccentric, Camden Town is punk, Greenwich and Spitalfields are tony, while sprawling through the streets near Spitalfields is a very cheap and somewhat down-at-the-heels market that, except for the skin color of almost everyone there, could have been in Istanbul. And there are surely dozens of markets I haven't seen yet.
Last weekend I went to Camden Town, where four or five markets shoulder their way into one another. Camden High Street/Chalk Farm Road connects them all (street names here change every few blocks), and while it's not a pedestrian throughway, you wouldn't know it at first glance. Pity the driver who needs to pass through on a weekend day, or anytime right before Christmas. The storefronts could be on the Midway at the State Fair. Rough and sometimes gloriously grotesque sculpted pieces give it all a fantastical dreamlike aspect. Heavily pierced men and women in leather or Goth black, many with high pointed Mohawks--think the Statue of Liberty on a 3-day binge--stand on the sidewalk looking like street prophets warning that the end of the world is near. Their signs point you to tattoo and piercing parlors with names like Dark Angel, Metallic Militia, and Chrome.
This is not the part of town you go to if you're thinking Starbucks (though sadly you could probably find one there). Minneapolis by comparison, with its sterile glass skyways, feels like a laboratory in a research hospital.
I do look forward to going home to see friends and family, but the vibrancy of this city--exhausting though it can be--is magnetic.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Reflecting at year's end
With classes having ended for the term, I hope to be spending some time pulling thoughts together. That will probably come over a period of time. I'd appreciate the chance to discuss some of this over a pint with my classmates, but understandably, people are scattering to the four winds for the holidays--or if they're not, I'm not sure who's still in town because we don't have schedules in common right now. I too will be heading home soon (Thursday!) for two weeks with the family and seeing friends and neighbors, and I'm looking forward to that, but it'll seem a bit unreal. As will this whole experience here from the perspective of being back home.
Anyway, a few thoughts, impressions, and recollections at this point, with a bit of catch-up thrown in:
Rock paper scissors
Much of what we do in class is try to convey close observations of nature through bodily movement. This has the double function of, well, making us observe closely and learn to move in ways we haven't done before. (Duh.) For example, two days in the final week or so we observed paper and balloons. You may think you remember how a balloon behaves when it's blown up and released, but watching it closely, very closely, may bring some realizations and refinements you'd forgotten. At what pace(s) does a balloon inflate? What's the rhythm? Once you let it go and it exhausts itself, does it still move? (Often it does, subtly.) When you crumple paper and throw it on the floor, what does it do? (Try it sometime. Thin paper crumpled loosely work best. Watch closely.) And then try to recreate that with your body, with your voice. How does paper tear? What's it like to be paper being torn? Or how does olive oil move when poured onto the floor? And if you pair up with a partner and one is olive oil and the other is paper, what happens when they meet? Add a third person standing at a distance who is also a piece of paper. How does that person react--how do they crumple--on seeing the other piece of paper become not just paper and not quite oil? It goes on and on. Once we did bouncing balls interacting with a pane of glass, and soon the bouncing balls became kindergarten children coming in from recess and the pane of glass a teacher on her first day. Fascinating to watch. Or to try to be.
This may or may not give you some idea of the odd but imaginative work we do. And it's all expressed without dialogue. Or very rarely with dialogue, this year anyway.
Thursday evening we got to see some presentations by the Advanced Course. Some were in a commedia dell'arte style, with half masks (and dialogue). Some were big-screen films translated to 6 or 7 people recreating them on platforms about 6 feet by 3 feet, with no props, no entrances and exits, no costumes (but with dialogue). That's been my favorite thing to watch thus far. It's amazing what creativity is spurred by an impossible task like performing "Jaws" or "Jurassic Park" or an Indiana Jones movie on what is basically a table top set on the floor. You've really got to see it to fully grasp the wonder of it all--the mixture of close-ups and long-distance pans, the change in camera angles, the conveying of special effects through only the embodied imaginations of an ensemble of people crowded onto a very small rectangle.
Idumea
To my great surprise, we ended our final Voice class singing a shape-note hymn (called Idumea). The teacher had heard it in the film "Cold Mountain." I happened to know it from, well, being married to Robin. (Shape-note singing is basically an old form of hymn singing from the Appalachians. Very powerful, very primitive sounding.) Simon and I taught it to the rest of the class. I asked why he'd had us sing such a hymn, and he said it was because of the long sustained notes and how it draws on singing from the belly. He knows nothing of the tradition, but he did have us end singing while standing in a very close cluster, which actually isn't that different from how that kind of singing is usually done. I told him I'd bring back a shape-note songbook for him to look at.
You better watch out, better not cry ...
It's pretty well known that you can't go far in London without being watched by security cameras. Even downtown Minneapolis is going that route with cameras mounted on light poles and buildings. But today I saw something I'd never seen before. Parked on my street near the bus stop was a black SmartCar (one of those pint-sized autos that are starting to make their way onto the American market) with what looked like a black webcam mounted on the top, a sinister cyclops the size of a baby's head. On the hood of the car (would that be the "boot" or the "bonnet"? I can never remember) it said simply CCTV. I assume this was a mobile security camera, probably police operated. So even where cameras aren't stationed, they send out these little robotic-looking thingies to spy on what's going on. It's a bit weird. Is it supposed to make people feel safer or to intimidate? Maybe a bit of both. But it seemed to be more of the latter.
Christmas in London
I hear that Christmas is coming up soon, but it's hard to get into that awareness. Part of it is having been so busy, part of it is having nothing in my regular schedule that reminds me what season it is, and the weather is as you'd expect in London--gray, damp, occasionally rainy, basically the same as it's been for weeks and weeks. I do see some lights strung on trees in public places, but Christmas decorations on houses are rare. Actually I like it that the tendency to put colored lights on everything that doesn't move is more restrained here. And I rarely hear any Muzak carols, which is a boon to aesthetic sanity.
Hey, I know what it is! One reason it just doesn't feel like December is that there's not the surge of good movie releases like I'm used to! (How sad is that that that's a marker for me?) Really, unlike in the States, when all the Oscar contenders get released just in time for Christmas, almost nothing of any note is in the movie theaters here. (Or "in the cinemaaahhs," as they say.) I gather that this Clint Eastwood/Angelina Jolie film is getting some Oscar buzz, but that's one of the few such films on offer here. Now that really makes me feel like I'm living in a foreign land!
Time to come home and see some movies, eat buckets of buttered popcorn, and put back on some of that weight I've lost.
Or time to come home for a visit anyway.
Anyway, a few thoughts, impressions, and recollections at this point, with a bit of catch-up thrown in:
Rock paper scissors
Much of what we do in class is try to convey close observations of nature through bodily movement. This has the double function of, well, making us observe closely and learn to move in ways we haven't done before. (Duh.) For example, two days in the final week or so we observed paper and balloons. You may think you remember how a balloon behaves when it's blown up and released, but watching it closely, very closely, may bring some realizations and refinements you'd forgotten. At what pace(s) does a balloon inflate? What's the rhythm? Once you let it go and it exhausts itself, does it still move? (Often it does, subtly.) When you crumple paper and throw it on the floor, what does it do? (Try it sometime. Thin paper crumpled loosely work best. Watch closely.) And then try to recreate that with your body, with your voice. How does paper tear? What's it like to be paper being torn? Or how does olive oil move when poured onto the floor? And if you pair up with a partner and one is olive oil and the other is paper, what happens when they meet? Add a third person standing at a distance who is also a piece of paper. How does that person react--how do they crumple--on seeing the other piece of paper become not just paper and not quite oil? It goes on and on. Once we did bouncing balls interacting with a pane of glass, and soon the bouncing balls became kindergarten children coming in from recess and the pane of glass a teacher on her first day. Fascinating to watch. Or to try to be.
This may or may not give you some idea of the odd but imaginative work we do. And it's all expressed without dialogue. Or very rarely with dialogue, this year anyway.
Thursday evening we got to see some presentations by the Advanced Course. Some were in a commedia dell'arte style, with half masks (and dialogue). Some were big-screen films translated to 6 or 7 people recreating them on platforms about 6 feet by 3 feet, with no props, no entrances and exits, no costumes (but with dialogue). That's been my favorite thing to watch thus far. It's amazing what creativity is spurred by an impossible task like performing "Jaws" or "Jurassic Park" or an Indiana Jones movie on what is basically a table top set on the floor. You've really got to see it to fully grasp the wonder of it all--the mixture of close-ups and long-distance pans, the change in camera angles, the conveying of special effects through only the embodied imaginations of an ensemble of people crowded onto a very small rectangle.
Idumea
To my great surprise, we ended our final Voice class singing a shape-note hymn (called Idumea). The teacher had heard it in the film "Cold Mountain." I happened to know it from, well, being married to Robin. (Shape-note singing is basically an old form of hymn singing from the Appalachians. Very powerful, very primitive sounding.) Simon and I taught it to the rest of the class. I asked why he'd had us sing such a hymn, and he said it was because of the long sustained notes and how it draws on singing from the belly. He knows nothing of the tradition, but he did have us end singing while standing in a very close cluster, which actually isn't that different from how that kind of singing is usually done. I told him I'd bring back a shape-note songbook for him to look at.
You better watch out, better not cry ...
It's pretty well known that you can't go far in London without being watched by security cameras. Even downtown Minneapolis is going that route with cameras mounted on light poles and buildings. But today I saw something I'd never seen before. Parked on my street near the bus stop was a black SmartCar (one of those pint-sized autos that are starting to make their way onto the American market) with what looked like a black webcam mounted on the top, a sinister cyclops the size of a baby's head. On the hood of the car (would that be the "boot" or the "bonnet"? I can never remember) it said simply CCTV. I assume this was a mobile security camera, probably police operated. So even where cameras aren't stationed, they send out these little robotic-looking thingies to spy on what's going on. It's a bit weird. Is it supposed to make people feel safer or to intimidate? Maybe a bit of both. But it seemed to be more of the latter.
Christmas in London
I hear that Christmas is coming up soon, but it's hard to get into that awareness. Part of it is having been so busy, part of it is having nothing in my regular schedule that reminds me what season it is, and the weather is as you'd expect in London--gray, damp, occasionally rainy, basically the same as it's been for weeks and weeks. I do see some lights strung on trees in public places, but Christmas decorations on houses are rare. Actually I like it that the tendency to put colored lights on everything that doesn't move is more restrained here. And I rarely hear any Muzak carols, which is a boon to aesthetic sanity.
Hey, I know what it is! One reason it just doesn't feel like December is that there's not the surge of good movie releases like I'm used to! (How sad is that that that's a marker for me?) Really, unlike in the States, when all the Oscar contenders get released just in time for Christmas, almost nothing of any note is in the movie theaters here. (Or "in the cinemaaahhs," as they say.) I gather that this Clint Eastwood/Angelina Jolie film is getting some Oscar buzz, but that's one of the few such films on offer here. Now that really makes me feel like I'm living in a foreign land!
Time to come home and see some movies, eat buckets of buttered popcorn, and put back on some of that weight I've lost.
Or time to come home for a visit anyway.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The end is near
The term is almost over. Classes one more day, then we get to see the Advanced Course's final presentations tomorrow night, then we have one-on-one conferences with the school founder and present our final group Creations on Friday. Today, as you may recall, were our Acrobatics presentations...
Anticlimax ahead.
Yesterday morning I fell awkwardly on my neck yet again. How many times I've done this now I've lost count. Besides my deficit in physical skill, I must not be communicating very clearly. Either that or I'm not being picky enough in choosing my spotters. (Frankly, I think it's the latter.) As on Saturday when I fell hard on my shoulder, yesterday I'd explained to a classmate beforehand what I didn't want to happen--what I wanted his help in preventing--and the support I hoped I wouldn't need (but did) came too little and too late. When I fall, I fall fast. And hard. And, I'd guess, not too gracefully.
In a word: Ouch. Though that's not the word I said at the time.
I had called the London School of Osteopathy on Monday to try to get an appointment to have my shoulder looked at. I was to go in yesterday afternoon. That was fortunate. Now I had yet another sore spot to add to my litany of injuries--right shoulder, left knee, right hip, right elbow, and now the neck again. As I write this, I have a pack of frozen peas lashed to my neck with a tea towel. When the osteopath took notes on my history, he must have felt like he was writing a novel, probably a comic one. And after examining my shoulder and neck (there simply wasn't time in an hour-and-a-half appointment to get to all my sore spots--how telling is that) he told me in no uncertain terms that I really shouldn't try the Acrobatics routine this morning. So of our class of 21--and as far as I know, of our total first-year class of 45 or so--I was the only one who sat out. To prevent bodily damage I injured my pride. So it goes. Instead I became the designated videographer and occasional spotter for others.
To be sure, I wasn't looking forward to doing the Acrobatics routine today. Dreading it is probably a more accurate reflection. But still, I had the adrenaline build-up, and then came the let-down. Why do the body, mind, and emotions combine to play such games?
I do hope to be able to fully participate in Acro next term. I AM going to master this headstand. And the handstand is still in my sights. And so is a flexible and functional neck.
Anticlimax ahead.
Yesterday morning I fell awkwardly on my neck yet again. How many times I've done this now I've lost count. Besides my deficit in physical skill, I must not be communicating very clearly. Either that or I'm not being picky enough in choosing my spotters. (Frankly, I think it's the latter.) As on Saturday when I fell hard on my shoulder, yesterday I'd explained to a classmate beforehand what I didn't want to happen--what I wanted his help in preventing--and the support I hoped I wouldn't need (but did) came too little and too late. When I fall, I fall fast. And hard. And, I'd guess, not too gracefully.
In a word: Ouch. Though that's not the word I said at the time.
I had called the London School of Osteopathy on Monday to try to get an appointment to have my shoulder looked at. I was to go in yesterday afternoon. That was fortunate. Now I had yet another sore spot to add to my litany of injuries--right shoulder, left knee, right hip, right elbow, and now the neck again. As I write this, I have a pack of frozen peas lashed to my neck with a tea towel. When the osteopath took notes on my history, he must have felt like he was writing a novel, probably a comic one. And after examining my shoulder and neck (there simply wasn't time in an hour-and-a-half appointment to get to all my sore spots--how telling is that) he told me in no uncertain terms that I really shouldn't try the Acrobatics routine this morning. So of our class of 21--and as far as I know, of our total first-year class of 45 or so--I was the only one who sat out. To prevent bodily damage I injured my pride. So it goes. Instead I became the designated videographer and occasional spotter for others.
To be sure, I wasn't looking forward to doing the Acrobatics routine today. Dreading it is probably a more accurate reflection. But still, I had the adrenaline build-up, and then came the let-down. Why do the body, mind, and emotions combine to play such games?
I do hope to be able to fully participate in Acro next term. I AM going to master this headstand. And the handstand is still in my sights. And so is a flexible and functional neck.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
The bane of my Lispa existence
Because Acrobatics is so difficult for me, it's one of the areas that gives me fruitful ground for learning. Not just learning how to accomplish a headstand or a handstand, though I do want to do those things. It’s also what I learn through failing when trying to do them.
Today we had an extra time set aside to go back into the Hackney space to practice on the mats. (The space … I know how odd that sounds. We basically have one large room that's our classroom and lab for everything. People just refer to it as the space. As I may have mentioned, half of us have our classes in the borough and town of Hackney in the East End. The rest have their classes on Latimer Road on the West side in what is probably Kensington and/or Hammersmith. Occasionally we visit each other's spaces for presentations. In January we all move into a new space in East London. More on that next month.) Back to today’s events…
I was working on various things, especially the headstand and handstand. Without having to plan to, I was also working with my feelings of discouragement. I know that no one at the presentations on Wednesday will be overly critical of how well or poorly I do things—probably not even critical at all. We’re all agreed that the main thing is to do your best, in Acrobatics at least. (The Improv classes, on the other hand, have a higher standard.) But I get so discouraged when I can't do things. I'm sure I could just say no, I'm not going to do a presentation. But that's not what I want either.
Take the handstand. Basically you approach it like a cartwheel but head on. And you're supposed to put your hands to the floor, arms straight, and kick up into a vertical position, head down and toes pointed to the ceiling, balance for a moment, then tuck your head, bend your arms, and roll out of it down the curve of your spine and back up into a standing position. I just can't get the hang of it. A couple of times I've gotten into the vertical upside-down position, but only with two strong people assisting me. Part of the problem, I know, is that I hesitate. You just can't hesitate in this or you don't get the momentum. But I've done it in so many wrong ways--not keeping my arms straight, trying to kick up before having my hands on the ground (which is akin to trying to dive into a mat that is so very much not water), looking too far forward and so having my shoulders and spine in an impossible position to get my legs vertical ... see how much I'm learning? a thousand ways from Sunday how not to do it. Now if I could just get my body to do the right things! Anyway, I've attempted this so many wrong ways that it's very hard for me not to hesitate when I go to try it again, which often leads to discovering a new way not to do it, and a heightened likelihood of hurting myself, which leads to more of a feeling that I can't do it, which leads to discouragement, which leads to more hesitation... You see where this goes, and it's not pretty, and it's not fun.
How do you talk yourself into a feeling of "I can do this" when your experience is repeatedly one of not being able to? Where's the road from I can't to I can? Your mental state is so very important in these things, but there's only so much that talking yourself into it can do, especially when personal injury is a likely result of not getting your body to do the right things. But this is the challenge. Yes, I know, you can break it down into little steps, and I'm trying to do that, but ultimately it's also about flow. The steps aren't discrete and separate, like knots on a rope. Without momentum, it won't go. And hesitation and over-thinking it just get in the way. I don't mean to say this is all impossible--it reminds me of some classic philosophical conundrum from one of my college classes, Zeno's paradox it might have been called, where in order for an arrow to strike a target it has to go half way first, then it has to go half way of what's left, then half of that, then half of that, and you can halve the distance so many times that after a while you think it's impossible for the arrow to get there at all. But the arrow does get there. And somehow it's possible--even for me, I trust--to accomplish a handstand. And I want to do it. But I hurt myself yet again trying it today, landing hard on my right shoulder. I heard something crack when I landed. I iced it and am dosing it with ibuprofen, and nothing swelled up. So I'm hoping that what cracked was nothing more than a bit of my resistance. But it'll be a bit harder yet not to hesitate when next I try it again.
The other day someone posted this quote from Samuel Beckett on the bulletin board.
Maybe that's my task for now.
Today we had an extra time set aside to go back into the Hackney space to practice on the mats. (The space … I know how odd that sounds. We basically have one large room that's our classroom and lab for everything. People just refer to it as the space. As I may have mentioned, half of us have our classes in the borough and town of Hackney in the East End. The rest have their classes on Latimer Road on the West side in what is probably Kensington and/or Hammersmith. Occasionally we visit each other's spaces for presentations. In January we all move into a new space in East London. More on that next month.) Back to today’s events…
I was working on various things, especially the headstand and handstand. Without having to plan to, I was also working with my feelings of discouragement. I know that no one at the presentations on Wednesday will be overly critical of how well or poorly I do things—probably not even critical at all. We’re all agreed that the main thing is to do your best, in Acrobatics at least. (The Improv classes, on the other hand, have a higher standard.) But I get so discouraged when I can't do things. I'm sure I could just say no, I'm not going to do a presentation. But that's not what I want either.
Take the handstand. Basically you approach it like a cartwheel but head on. And you're supposed to put your hands to the floor, arms straight, and kick up into a vertical position, head down and toes pointed to the ceiling, balance for a moment, then tuck your head, bend your arms, and roll out of it down the curve of your spine and back up into a standing position. I just can't get the hang of it. A couple of times I've gotten into the vertical upside-down position, but only with two strong people assisting me. Part of the problem, I know, is that I hesitate. You just can't hesitate in this or you don't get the momentum. But I've done it in so many wrong ways--not keeping my arms straight, trying to kick up before having my hands on the ground (which is akin to trying to dive into a mat that is so very much not water), looking too far forward and so having my shoulders and spine in an impossible position to get my legs vertical ... see how much I'm learning? a thousand ways from Sunday how not to do it. Now if I could just get my body to do the right things! Anyway, I've attempted this so many wrong ways that it's very hard for me not to hesitate when I go to try it again, which often leads to discovering a new way not to do it, and a heightened likelihood of hurting myself, which leads to more of a feeling that I can't do it, which leads to discouragement, which leads to more hesitation... You see where this goes, and it's not pretty, and it's not fun.
How do you talk yourself into a feeling of "I can do this" when your experience is repeatedly one of not being able to? Where's the road from I can't to I can? Your mental state is so very important in these things, but there's only so much that talking yourself into it can do, especially when personal injury is a likely result of not getting your body to do the right things. But this is the challenge. Yes, I know, you can break it down into little steps, and I'm trying to do that, but ultimately it's also about flow. The steps aren't discrete and separate, like knots on a rope. Without momentum, it won't go. And hesitation and over-thinking it just get in the way. I don't mean to say this is all impossible--it reminds me of some classic philosophical conundrum from one of my college classes, Zeno's paradox it might have been called, where in order for an arrow to strike a target it has to go half way first, then it has to go half way of what's left, then half of that, then half of that, and you can halve the distance so many times that after a while you think it's impossible for the arrow to get there at all. But the arrow does get there. And somehow it's possible--even for me, I trust--to accomplish a handstand. And I want to do it. But I hurt myself yet again trying it today, landing hard on my right shoulder. I heard something crack when I landed. I iced it and am dosing it with ibuprofen, and nothing swelled up. So I'm hoping that what cracked was nothing more than a bit of my resistance. But it'll be a bit harder yet not to hesitate when next I try it again.
The other day someone posted this quote from Samuel Beckett on the bulletin board.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
Maybe that's my task for now.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Voice lessons (or, Simon says)
Simon, our Voice teacher, said something today that I thought described the apparent goal of Lispa in general. (When I think about it, It seems a bit odd that I've never even heard the last names of almost allof our teachers (or of my fellow students, for that matter). And no one ever refers to "the teachers" as faculty, certainly not as professors.) The gist of what Simon said was that what he's trying to do is help us to recover good and healthy ways of using our voices that, through bad learning, misuse, or disuse, we've forgotten--ways that will help us to communicate more effectively and more naturally if only we can get our bodies to remember them and retrain ourselves into using those practices again.
The school, by focusing on what is called physical theatre, aims to help us use our bodies in such ways. My middle-aged body is a good example of the stiffness that comes from inattention, bad habits, and years of neglecting to keep myself limber. My distress has been that I won't be able to regain the flexibility that I lost as a child. I literally can't remember the last time I could sit cross-legged on the floor, for example, and I've always felt clunky and awkward in any kind of freestyle dancing. But Ilan, our main Movement teacher--a very childlike, limber, and young-acting man whom, rumor has it, is 76 years old--keeps assuring me that I can indeed regain lost flexibility. And, bless him, he also says he can already see a difference in the way I move.
The recovery of something childlike, young, creative, expressive, something that (we are repeatedly told) our bodies know even if our minds no longer remember or understand: this seems to be a lot of the aim here. That and encouraging us to find the bold and generous creator/artist/communicator within. And a more harmonious unity of body, will, and spirit.
Or so it seems after seven weeks.
I can see why Thomas keeps saying not to think of this as an acting school.
PS -- Speaking of stiffness, the hot Epsom salts bath seems to have headed off a lot of the pain I expected after Acrobatics class yesterday. I decided not to try a headstand again today. But I need to try to get back on that horse again tomorrow or Saturday. Our Acrobatics presentations are less than a week away. I need to set aside the hesitations and fears that hold me back and just go for it. I want to do that. After all, that's what I'm here for: to push through the things in my own head and habits that hold me back.
The school, by focusing on what is called physical theatre, aims to help us use our bodies in such ways. My middle-aged body is a good example of the stiffness that comes from inattention, bad habits, and years of neglecting to keep myself limber. My distress has been that I won't be able to regain the flexibility that I lost as a child. I literally can't remember the last time I could sit cross-legged on the floor, for example, and I've always felt clunky and awkward in any kind of freestyle dancing. But Ilan, our main Movement teacher--a very childlike, limber, and young-acting man whom, rumor has it, is 76 years old--keeps assuring me that I can indeed regain lost flexibility. And, bless him, he also says he can already see a difference in the way I move.
The recovery of something childlike, young, creative, expressive, something that (we are repeatedly told) our bodies know even if our minds no longer remember or understand: this seems to be a lot of the aim here. That and encouraging us to find the bold and generous creator/artist/communicator within. And a more harmonious unity of body, will, and spirit.
Or so it seems after seven weeks.
I can see why Thomas keeps saying not to think of this as an acting school.
PS -- Speaking of stiffness, the hot Epsom salts bath seems to have headed off a lot of the pain I expected after Acrobatics class yesterday. I decided not to try a headstand again today. But I need to try to get back on that horse again tomorrow or Saturday. Our Acrobatics presentations are less than a week away. I need to set aside the hesitations and fears that hold me back and just go for it. I want to do that. After all, that's what I'm here for: to push through the things in my own head and habits that hold me back.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
It all lands on the neck
Well, I guess I was due for a fall. (How Minnesotan is this?) Yesterday was such a good day, and today... well, let's just say things balanced out again.
One of the highlights yesterday was that I accomplished a headstand! With only the most minimal assistance from a classmate, there I was, crown of the head and both palms on the floor (head cushioned by two pillows), my body vertically up-side down, toes pointing to the ceiling. It was an amazing feeling. Finally! We're working up to a presentation next Wednesday that has a scripted acrobatics routine of 16 figures, with cartwheels, headstand, handstand, forward rolls, side rolls, even a figure approaching that thing you see men do in the gymnastics part of the Olympics--on the horse, I think--spinning one leg in circles horizontally beneath their crouched body, switching hands to let the leg swing by. We're to do three of those. I can't even do one, but so it goes. As a matter of fact, there are many of the moves I can't do very well or without assistance. Which made it all the more rewarding to do a headstand (which almost everybody else could do weeks ago).
Then today we had Acrobatics class. And I kept landing on my neck and hard the middle of my back when I was trying to do the forward roll again (which, yes, others were doing with ease weeks ago). And I strained my neck when my weight shifted to the side when practicing a headstand. Arrrrrggggghhhhh. And I was so close yesterday.
On top of the discouragement, I could feel my neck and back tightening up, so I skipped the afternoon classes and called in sick to work. Came home and soaked in a hot bath with Epsom salts and am hoping for the best. So far not too bad. These old bones need some TLC.
Yawning for credit
Tomorrow begins with Voice class. I may have mentioned that we got cheated out of Voice the first two weeks due to teacher illness and a scheduling snafu, but I've been enjoying it once we finally did get started. We do a lot of yawning in that class. Apparently it's very good for the voice to open up the throat like that. And we've even been taught some of the finer points of not popping the jaw too wide open in a full yawn. No need to go into it all here, but Voice is often quite a relaxing class, and sometimes the most common things can be both more beneficial and more complex than I'd ever realized.
As in all the classes, much of the focus in Voice is on the breathing. (Thus the title of this blog.) It's amazing how often we forget to breathe when concentrating on something difficult or new, and how remembering to breathe can help a lot--I'm sure I must be forgetting to breathe during my headstands! And since to date we've used our voices very little in our Movement and Improv classes, this one gets to a very important but unstressed aspect of communication here.
More on this at another time. Right now I'm just looking forward to a more relaxing start to the day. Today was pretty discouraging.
One of the highlights yesterday was that I accomplished a headstand! With only the most minimal assistance from a classmate, there I was, crown of the head and both palms on the floor (head cushioned by two pillows), my body vertically up-side down, toes pointing to the ceiling. It was an amazing feeling. Finally! We're working up to a presentation next Wednesday that has a scripted acrobatics routine of 16 figures, with cartwheels, headstand, handstand, forward rolls, side rolls, even a figure approaching that thing you see men do in the gymnastics part of the Olympics--on the horse, I think--spinning one leg in circles horizontally beneath their crouched body, switching hands to let the leg swing by. We're to do three of those. I can't even do one, but so it goes. As a matter of fact, there are many of the moves I can't do very well or without assistance. Which made it all the more rewarding to do a headstand (which almost everybody else could do weeks ago).
Then today we had Acrobatics class. And I kept landing on my neck and hard the middle of my back when I was trying to do the forward roll again (which, yes, others were doing with ease weeks ago). And I strained my neck when my weight shifted to the side when practicing a headstand. Arrrrrggggghhhhh. And I was so close yesterday.
On top of the discouragement, I could feel my neck and back tightening up, so I skipped the afternoon classes and called in sick to work. Came home and soaked in a hot bath with Epsom salts and am hoping for the best. So far not too bad. These old bones need some TLC.
Yawning for credit
Tomorrow begins with Voice class. I may have mentioned that we got cheated out of Voice the first two weeks due to teacher illness and a scheduling snafu, but I've been enjoying it once we finally did get started. We do a lot of yawning in that class. Apparently it's very good for the voice to open up the throat like that. And we've even been taught some of the finer points of not popping the jaw too wide open in a full yawn. No need to go into it all here, but Voice is often quite a relaxing class, and sometimes the most common things can be both more beneficial and more complex than I'd ever realized.
As in all the classes, much of the focus in Voice is on the breathing. (Thus the title of this blog.) It's amazing how often we forget to breathe when concentrating on something difficult or new, and how remembering to breathe can help a lot--I'm sure I must be forgetting to breathe during my headstands! And since to date we've used our voices very little in our Movement and Improv classes, this one gets to a very important but unstressed aspect of communication here.
More on this at another time. Right now I'm just looking forward to a more relaxing start to the day. Today was pretty discouraging.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Promethean fire (or at least a glimmer of insight)
It helps to have struggled aloud (struggled ablog?) with this question of who the neutral mask is. Perhaps yesterday's questions put me in a position to have a bit of an epiphany today. It came in a class with Thomas, whom many people have rightly called a master teacher. He has a way of presenting things in such a way that doesn't quite take you all the way there, but leads you to the threshold of discovery and puts you in a position to step into a new awareness.
What I think I understand better today is this. For today anyway, I think the best way to describe the neutral mask is to say that he or she is Promethean. I don't remember that Greek myth in detail, but what I do recall is that Prometheus was the one who stole fire from the gods and brought it to humanity. Why? That may never be explained, but his urge, his act, his story reflects something in the human spirit that rebels (or rather that pays no attention to the things that would hold it back), something that reaches for transcendence, that embodies human striving. Something that does what it has to do, not out of duty but out of what it naturally desires and needs, and for the good of us all because it's what we all want and need.
Jotted below are my notes from a three-minute break between Movement and Improvisation classes today. I recognize that they might not make much sense to some readers--I never could quite understand what Isabel was talking about when she blogged about her first-year experience here two years ago--but it will to others. The break between classes came just after a short talk by Thomas following an exercise in which we were playing with the dynamics needed to lift a hugely heavy barbell from the floor and hoist it over our heads. (There was of course no barbell. It was all an imaginative exercise in which we had to explore and act out the most efficient way of doing it using just body dynamics):
So much of this first year is designed to get people to find the Prometheus within. To discover what it is we deeply want to create. To push each of us to discover for ourselves What is my vision, my gift, the specific creation that only I can bring to the world? What is my Promethean fire? And if we really find that, and if it truly is Promethean, then we will have to find a way to bring it forth. Otherwise it's simply an idea, a whim, a hobby.
As always there's a lot more to say about this, and it touches on some of the most obvious questions--why did I choose to leave ministry after some 20 years? why did I leave home, partner, and country to pursue this holy(?) grail in a far country, even and especially when i don't consider myself an actor or a performing artist?
I'll surely return to this question from time to time, but a quote has been echoing through my mind of late when I've thought of these questions. It really doesn't address some of the weightier parts of my decision, but I'll mention it here because it's a familiar way into the question. From Thoreau's Walden:
Stay tuned.
What I think I understand better today is this. For today anyway, I think the best way to describe the neutral mask is to say that he or she is Promethean. I don't remember that Greek myth in detail, but what I do recall is that Prometheus was the one who stole fire from the gods and brought it to humanity. Why? That may never be explained, but his urge, his act, his story reflects something in the human spirit that rebels (or rather that pays no attention to the things that would hold it back), something that reaches for transcendence, that embodies human striving. Something that does what it has to do, not out of duty but out of what it naturally desires and needs, and for the good of us all because it's what we all want and need.
Jotted below are my notes from a three-minute break between Movement and Improvisation classes today. I recognize that they might not make much sense to some readers--I never could quite understand what Isabel was talking about when she blogged about her first-year experience here two years ago--but it will to others. The break between classes came just after a short talk by Thomas following an exercise in which we were playing with the dynamics needed to lift a hugely heavy barbell from the floor and hoist it over our heads. (There was of course no barbell. It was all an imaginative exercise in which we had to explore and act out the most efficient way of doing it using just body dynamics):
I think the mask is Promethean.
[Quote from Thomas:] "If you want to create something original, you have to learn to swim against the current. If you're satisfied just to be a nice performer, that's something different."
This is why the mask knows no small movements. This is why its psychology never second-guesses and its thoughts never hold it back. The mask says yes to its creative impulses. It is alert. It generates and it reacts. It is fully alive. It is not 'sentimental.' (But if it is to have an exodus, it has to be more complex, less of a jumbo jet. So part of the problem yesterday was the mismatch of the assignment.)
The key is in the question Why? [and especially in its unanswerability.] "Why should you lift that great weight?" Thomas asked. "You could just let it lie there." Similarly: Why create? Why journey? Why even breathe? That question--why breathe?--may best reflect the motivation of the mask. So it's not just remember to breathe. It's remember that you do. And know in your body that if you don't, you can't even be. If you don't breathe, you are nothing. If you don't breathe, you die.
So much of this first year is designed to get people to find the Prometheus within. To discover what it is we deeply want to create. To push each of us to discover for ourselves What is my vision, my gift, the specific creation that only I can bring to the world? What is my Promethean fire? And if we really find that, and if it truly is Promethean, then we will have to find a way to bring it forth. Otherwise it's simply an idea, a whim, a hobby.
As always there's a lot more to say about this, and it touches on some of the most obvious questions--why did I choose to leave ministry after some 20 years? why did I leave home, partner, and country to pursue this holy(?) grail in a far country, even and especially when i don't consider myself an actor or a performing artist?
I'll surely return to this question from time to time, but a quote has been echoing through my mind of late when I've thought of these questions. It really doesn't address some of the weightier parts of my decision, but I'll mention it here because it's a familiar way into the question. From Thoreau's Walden:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Stay tuned.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Neutral mask, revisited
Time for another update. For any who are checking this blog regularly, I apologize for the sporadic rhythm of my posts.
Only two weeks left in this term. Next week we each have a conference with Thomas to evaluate how it's going and whether we'll each be coming back for more in January. I assume everyone will have the option, and as far as I know everyone will choose to come back. I embarked on this journey assuming I'll be here for two years. It's too early to make a decision yet, but I've been thinking more and more that one year might be enough.
I think I'm rising to the occasion of the end of the term, but I've been in a bit of a doldrums for the past couple of weeks. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe fatigue. Maybe because some days this whole experience misses the mark for me. We've been in kind of a no-man's land for a while--or at least I have. All the improvisations for a few weeks now have been in the neutral mask, which I described earlier. The teaching style here is often, shall we say, indirect. And while they never out and out say "That's the wrong thing to do," it's clear that there is a kind of personality that they all agree that the neutral mask has, a certain kind of movement that the mask requires of its wearer. The neutral mask is unintimidated by anything (even earthquake, wind, and fire). The neutral mask is at home in all kinds of (imagined) natural environments. It is at home in the world of giants. It's a jumbo jet, one of the teachers likes to say, "and you don't drive a jumbo jet to the corner store for a gallon of milk." So while they never use this word, it seems to me that the neutral mask (that is, its character) could be described as heroic. It's mythical, maybe archetypal, but archetypal of what exactly, I'm not sure. And so the fact that we're always putting on the mask for our improvisations shapes the way we are to do things. "You can be much bigger," they're always telling us. "The mask is bigger than that." "Look at the mask. It knows no fear."
Is this an acting style they're encouraging us into? In a way, yes, but somehow it's more than acting. It's really a way of being in the world. But the settings in which we are to enact that way are always extraordinary. If you don't drive your 747 to the corner store, neither do you use it in your everyday life in any way. So there's something very artificial about all of this--even though in the vocabulary of the teaching here, the mask is by definition natural, but not normal. (Normal being our usual ways of living in the world--characteristically at a low energy level, in kind of a J. Alfred Prufrock state of being ("I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat and snicker, and in short I was afraid...") The mask is its antithesis.)
So what I think they're really about here is trying to pull the heroic, the brave, the extraordinary out of people as artists. And they're trying to nurture a feeling of connection with others, a generosity that wants to communicate and is always aware of others--your co-creators on stage at any given moment as well as your audience. I'm all for that. But there's no room for the small gesture in the world of the neutral mask, and sometimes I find that too limiting.
A small example from today. Our task was to present something on the theme of exodus: a group of people who have to leave home and go on a journey. They would prefer to stay, but some circumstance we've decided on as creative collaborators makes it necessary for us to leave home and go. Our group decided to portray a family having to leave a farm because of drought. (All of this is done nonverbally, and in mask.) Without saying so, my character was the old man (yeah, I know; go figure...), the one who had lived there for the longest, who probably built the house, perhaps had cleared the land. As we left, after finding the crops parched and no more water in the well, I bent down to scoop up a handful of soil and put it in my pocket. The teaching critique that came later was that's too small a gesture for the mask, and it just comes off as sentimental.
So is the mask human? subhuman? superhuman? Probably not exactly any of the three. And there's no point in asking for an answer to such a question in class, because none will be given, though the question itself will be celebrated.
It's not that this is frustrating to me--I've always been better at asking questions than at answering them anyway, and I know that a question stays alive, keeps working on you, pushes you to newer and deeper understandings when you can hold it in suspension and not demand an answer (which often reduces the question to a smaller level anyway). It's more that the questions I have are not primarily about who the neutral mask is. They have more to do with who I am and who I'm still becoming. Yes, it will be great if all this work will spur me to more boldness, to knowing what it is I want and to having the fire in the belly to pursue it. That's what I'm here for. But will learning to express a near-mythic drive through large bodily movement translate into that?
(I can hear it now: Greaaat! Yes! A very good question!)
But I'm not looking for praise for asking questions.
So I wonder how this will all progress in the months to come.
And by the way, I still think there's a place for the small meaningful action, even if there's no place for "sentimentality" in the world of the neutral mask.
Moving on to other topics...
Not acting. Reacting.
The focus in the improvisations isn't on acting. It's on creating a world--helping the audience to see a world--through our reacting to it, through having that imagined world work on us. We communicate through reacting to what only we can see (since we have no props, no costumes, and usually no dialogue). The mantra recently and again today, it seems, was "Give us the experience, not the idea." There's a lot of "Don't think. Do." "Turn your brain off and allow yourself to be surprised" by what comes to you in your improv. This is really hard--and means that it only gets in the way to start with much of a plan of what you want to do. And it's an open question to what extent it's a way of doing things that's transferable outside this program. Though I recognize that there are times I'd have been a lot happier, a lot freer, and might have created something better for myself and maybe also for others if I could just have quieted the eternal chatter in my brain.
Teaching gems, part 2
One day, as a way of spurring creativity for our Creation group times later, one of the teachers (Michael) led us in this exercise where we were to say yes to whatever anyone else proposed. The scenario was that we were put in groups of about 5 and given some silly product to create an advertising campaign for. Whatever proposal anyone came up with was supposed to strike us as the best idea ever. And we'd just build on it with whatever other suggestions arose. It was a lot of fun, and it also was remarkable to see how much energy was generated by the simple fact of not worrying over what others would think of your idea. Surely a broader lesson there somewhere.
And remember the blog entry about false starts and "It begins before it begins"? Teachers have continued the occasional practice of stopping people right as they start and having them start again. A scene has to begin with energy. You have to "take the space" to command people's attention from the very beginning. One of the teachers said "Josephine Baker used to get fucked right before she went onstage. Literally." But apparently (we heard later), not quite to the point of orgasm.
Talk about an entrance! Imagine how she must have commanded people's attention from the moment she stepped on stage!
(For any who are worrying, we don't have practicums in "How to take the space like Josephine Baker.")
Only two weeks left in this term. Next week we each have a conference with Thomas to evaluate how it's going and whether we'll each be coming back for more in January. I assume everyone will have the option, and as far as I know everyone will choose to come back. I embarked on this journey assuming I'll be here for two years. It's too early to make a decision yet, but I've been thinking more and more that one year might be enough.
I think I'm rising to the occasion of the end of the term, but I've been in a bit of a doldrums for the past couple of weeks. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe fatigue. Maybe because some days this whole experience misses the mark for me. We've been in kind of a no-man's land for a while--or at least I have. All the improvisations for a few weeks now have been in the neutral mask, which I described earlier. The teaching style here is often, shall we say, indirect. And while they never out and out say "That's the wrong thing to do," it's clear that there is a kind of personality that they all agree that the neutral mask has, a certain kind of movement that the mask requires of its wearer. The neutral mask is unintimidated by anything (even earthquake, wind, and fire). The neutral mask is at home in all kinds of (imagined) natural environments. It is at home in the world of giants. It's a jumbo jet, one of the teachers likes to say, "and you don't drive a jumbo jet to the corner store for a gallon of milk." So while they never use this word, it seems to me that the neutral mask (that is, its character) could be described as heroic. It's mythical, maybe archetypal, but archetypal of what exactly, I'm not sure. And so the fact that we're always putting on the mask for our improvisations shapes the way we are to do things. "You can be much bigger," they're always telling us. "The mask is bigger than that." "Look at the mask. It knows no fear."
Is this an acting style they're encouraging us into? In a way, yes, but somehow it's more than acting. It's really a way of being in the world. But the settings in which we are to enact that way are always extraordinary. If you don't drive your 747 to the corner store, neither do you use it in your everyday life in any way. So there's something very artificial about all of this--even though in the vocabulary of the teaching here, the mask is by definition natural, but not normal. (Normal being our usual ways of living in the world--characteristically at a low energy level, in kind of a J. Alfred Prufrock state of being ("I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat and snicker, and in short I was afraid...") The mask is its antithesis.)
So what I think they're really about here is trying to pull the heroic, the brave, the extraordinary out of people as artists. And they're trying to nurture a feeling of connection with others, a generosity that wants to communicate and is always aware of others--your co-creators on stage at any given moment as well as your audience. I'm all for that. But there's no room for the small gesture in the world of the neutral mask, and sometimes I find that too limiting.
A small example from today. Our task was to present something on the theme of exodus: a group of people who have to leave home and go on a journey. They would prefer to stay, but some circumstance we've decided on as creative collaborators makes it necessary for us to leave home and go. Our group decided to portray a family having to leave a farm because of drought. (All of this is done nonverbally, and in mask.) Without saying so, my character was the old man (yeah, I know; go figure...), the one who had lived there for the longest, who probably built the house, perhaps had cleared the land. As we left, after finding the crops parched and no more water in the well, I bent down to scoop up a handful of soil and put it in my pocket. The teaching critique that came later was that's too small a gesture for the mask, and it just comes off as sentimental.
So is the mask human? subhuman? superhuman? Probably not exactly any of the three. And there's no point in asking for an answer to such a question in class, because none will be given, though the question itself will be celebrated.
It's not that this is frustrating to me--I've always been better at asking questions than at answering them anyway, and I know that a question stays alive, keeps working on you, pushes you to newer and deeper understandings when you can hold it in suspension and not demand an answer (which often reduces the question to a smaller level anyway). It's more that the questions I have are not primarily about who the neutral mask is. They have more to do with who I am and who I'm still becoming. Yes, it will be great if all this work will spur me to more boldness, to knowing what it is I want and to having the fire in the belly to pursue it. That's what I'm here for. But will learning to express a near-mythic drive through large bodily movement translate into that?
(I can hear it now: Greaaat! Yes! A very good question!)
But I'm not looking for praise for asking questions.
So I wonder how this will all progress in the months to come.
And by the way, I still think there's a place for the small meaningful action, even if there's no place for "sentimentality" in the world of the neutral mask.
Moving on to other topics...
Not acting. Reacting.
The focus in the improvisations isn't on acting. It's on creating a world--helping the audience to see a world--through our reacting to it, through having that imagined world work on us. We communicate through reacting to what only we can see (since we have no props, no costumes, and usually no dialogue). The mantra recently and again today, it seems, was "Give us the experience, not the idea." There's a lot of "Don't think. Do." "Turn your brain off and allow yourself to be surprised" by what comes to you in your improv. This is really hard--and means that it only gets in the way to start with much of a plan of what you want to do. And it's an open question to what extent it's a way of doing things that's transferable outside this program. Though I recognize that there are times I'd have been a lot happier, a lot freer, and might have created something better for myself and maybe also for others if I could just have quieted the eternal chatter in my brain.
Teaching gems, part 2
One day, as a way of spurring creativity for our Creation group times later, one of the teachers (Michael) led us in this exercise where we were to say yes to whatever anyone else proposed. The scenario was that we were put in groups of about 5 and given some silly product to create an advertising campaign for. Whatever proposal anyone came up with was supposed to strike us as the best idea ever. And we'd just build on it with whatever other suggestions arose. It was a lot of fun, and it also was remarkable to see how much energy was generated by the simple fact of not worrying over what others would think of your idea. Surely a broader lesson there somewhere.
And remember the blog entry about false starts and "It begins before it begins"? Teachers have continued the occasional practice of stopping people right as they start and having them start again. A scene has to begin with energy. You have to "take the space" to command people's attention from the very beginning. One of the teachers said "Josephine Baker used to get fucked right before she went onstage. Literally." But apparently (we heard later), not quite to the point of orgasm.
Talk about an entrance! Imagine how she must have commanded people's attention from the moment she stepped on stage!
(For any who are worrying, we don't have practicums in "How to take the space like Josephine Baker.")
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)