It all seemed so innocuous at first. Thursday in class we began by taking a chair and noting how many separate movements are required to approach and sit in it. To be sure this came after a brief and seemingly unrelated comment about how music is distilled emotion and how certain chords or chord progressions are known to evoke strong emotion (and how advertisers manipulate us through their use). But that dropped from notice as I counted 1) look at the chair, 2) turn toward the chair (beginning with the pelvis!), 3) step toward the chair with my left foot, and so on. Sitting down took me 20-24 movements. Then all of a sudden we're in a different world. Amy told us she was going to put on a piece of music and wanted us to imagine returning to an important place and finding it destroyed. See it, walk through it. Touch parts of it.
I didn't notice other people, but I know I wasn't the only one bawling a couple of minutes later. I didn't think I had it in me. (One draft of a blog piece I never published reflected on how I think I've forgotten how to cry freely. It's not that I never cry. It's just that I always rein it in as soon as the emotion crosses a certain threshold.) Then she put us through the exercise once more without the music. Tears again. Then she offered some of us the opportunity to do it again wearing expressive masks, which cover your whole face except for the eyes. Which all led to a discussion of the need to and difficulty of moving past the point either where your own emotion overtakes you, or where it simply runs out and you're still in the position of sharing that experience with an audience. This is where relying on the space you're in and the specific objects around you comes in. (Thus the chair exercise, I guess? I'm still not sure. Some of us wondered afterward how we got from Point A to Point B in this lesson.)
For any others who also wonder about such things, I think Amy said the music was from Elgar's Enigma Variations. She also used Barber's Adagio for Strings later in the hour.
When I wrote my essay as part of the application to come here, I mentioned how sometimes in preaching the connection that happens is when the person speaking reflects and expresses the thoughts and emotions of those who are listening, and how that's probably a bit like theatre in some way. Not that you should gin up the emotion just to make a point or to manipulate those you're speaking to. Then again, that wouldn't be theatre at its best either, so it's another similarity. I've been thinking again over the past several weeks about how there's a generosity in theatre performance (I find myself avoiding the word acting) in helping the audience feel something deeply by feeling it yourself and reflecting it back out again. That's not the most elegant way to express it, I'm sure, and no great insight to some who might be reading this, but for this novice to this whole endeavor it's important. This whole experience is certainly giving me an even deeper respect for actors.
Show and tell
I mentioned expressive masks above. It's always better to show these things than to describe them. The video on Lispa's new website shows some of them, as well as the neutral mask and some of the larval masks (and other masks made by students). It also gives a general taste of the school and of Thomas's approach. And an extra bonus: if you wait and watch through the stills in the five panels at the top of the webpage, you'll see Isabel a couple of times.
The billionaires' convention
OK, this one has nothing to do with Lispa. The company I work for as an "administrative associate" (that is, a lowly office worker) had a booth at an exhibition for investors yesterday. We were told to be at our most professional as we handed out information because the people who'd be attending have beaucoup moolah--millionaires and billionaires. Who knows how many fit whatever category, but it was clearly a mixture of people enthusiastic either to give advice or to get it. There was a mad rush to the podium after one guy finished giving his tips for the coming year. (Which included be patriotic about Britain, wait for the Tories to come back to power and reinstate Mrs Thatcher's policies--and buy German real estate. Not quite sure how those go together, but I'm not his intended audience anyway.) Men in suits were running down the aisles to be the first to get whatever materials this man was giving out as soon as he said thank you and turned from the mike. The program said this guy--whoever he is--is worth about £700 million and that his predictions of a year ago proved dead accurate. I was curious, though, to note that he had the most nervous ways of wringing his hands and brushing back his hair as he spoke. (The jumbotron didn't do him any favors in the credibility department, I thought. Then again, I'm just a part-time administrative associate at a small company.)
Anyway, the convention made for great people watching. We've often worked in school with the idea of noting whatever animal seems to animate different people--how some are like mice or ferrets or komodo dragons--and at times yesterday was like a day at the zoo. Great fun. An arkful of eccentrics.
I'm not sure which animal another particular fellow was, but he stood out with his (seemingly intentionally) ill-fitting gold and black sports coat, oversized black horn-rimmed glasses and electric blue socks. I was told afterward that there's an an image among the British that the wealthy are particularly known for wearing bright (usually red) socks, and that this fellow is very well respected as an investor.
As a Minnesotan, it makes me wonder what this says about Garrison Keillor's portfolio (he of the trademark red socks)--no surprise that he's wealthy, but is his sock choice at all influenced by the current market? Someone will have to fill me in. Or for that matter, what would Brits think of the mayor of my hometown, who's known for intentionally wearing mismatched socks. If he were in politics here, would people read anything about his fiscal policies into what peeks out above his shoetops?
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