This past Wednesday, I was surprised by myself. During our session with George Drance, I found myself pliable, in body and mind. Arriving to quite a weird but enjoyable state of mind.
How did this happen?, I've been asking myself all week.
The study of gravity, momentum and suspension, were a way for me to find out how much I was committing to my body, how much I was trusting my body. If I didn't, when I thought about suspension instead of letting it be, I wouldn't feel anything. Instead, when I trusted that my body knew what it was doing, I would be surprised with gravity, momentum, and suspension. Which filled me with energy to continue with the rest of the exercises.
When experimenting with the waves, I was already mindset on letting whatever had to happen just happen. The energy coming from the floor through my whole body I feel was a way to dispose the body to receive and give without thinking about it. I feel I can apply that feeling to my scene work, because it makes me trust my reactions and not think about them. It makes the receiving of energy necessary for the giving of energy. Meaning, that whatever happens has to come from something. The same can be said about the experimentation with pull, push, reach and throw. When doing the movements with lines, I just used the text as a pretext, without expecting anything from myself or from the character. That availability of my mind, helped me play and discover new things about Medea. I think that if I had done the exercises making myself find something or thinking about how Medea is supposed to be, I wouldn't have discovered anything because I would not accept any energies coming at me that were different to what I had had rehearsed before. This relates to my experience in Andrea's class, accepting my feelings when reading the poem, to look at them with curiosity rather than avoid them.
When I read Chapter 8 from 'The Actor's Secret', I understood that what was allowing me to experience all this was presence, being at the moment, available to the space, as the space was available for me. The string exercise, in which we looked around and went through all the strings, were a way to experience the 50-50 awareness Polatin talks about. We had to be aware of our own strings, but also, of the rest of the class. I think that helps us a lot, not only for scene work, but also for our dynamic as an ensemble. Being connected only with our inner world is not useful when we have to, throw the ball during Andrea's class, for example. Or even when we are sitting down observing a scene, keeping and ensemble mentality, 50-50 awareness (with what we are feeling and what is happening onstage) will make us stronger as an ensemble and learn more about other's work.
Clare SO SAME! I also liked doing the waves because it encourages going with impulse and using the ‘organic brain’ but I also learned more about the basic principles of AT that I am constantly trying to understand better. I also noticed some of my bodies tendencies when trying to wave that had me in my head when trying to let go and just move.
ReplyDeleteI was able to really get a sense of gravity and anti gravity when rolling my spine/back for the waves. It felt very easy and natural to roll the wave out of the top of my head because my body naturally wanted to straighten up. This was the effect of anti-gravity and the body’s natural response to fight against gravity guiding the spine to lengthen upward. I was also able to notice the natural support that my body can give from the inside. I have a tendency to think that you can feel good posture. My shoulders feel tight my back feels straight and tense, my abs are tight. It's almost like good posture is standing upright because of all the muscles close to my surface. I don't know if that makes sense but I typically feel like my support comes from a shell of muscle on the outside as opposed to from within. With the wave exercise my muscles are forced to be loose in order to roll my body freely and yet I still felt support. I engage my internal support system which is just as effective and more comfortable. Doing the text exercise in the circle is where I felt inhibition. When I am unprepared or forget a line I have the habit of just freezing .Doing this exercise I am really learning to inhibit that habit. I can take a second to react differently to the stimuli of not knowing what line to say. Let that second of unknown be excitement rather than panic and use that productive/ positive energy to help me say a line. So I TOTALLY feel you on using the energy of the room and ‘giving yourself over.’-Jsizzle aka JC Nwabueze
Commenting on Laura above: what a joy to experience freedom and ease in these exercises and learn to apply them to rehearsal. It can get so heavy and dull trying to do what we think in our brains is the "right" choice instead of being in this place of discovery and "anything can happen." And I absolutely agree that the string exercise brings you into that 50-50 presence experience Polatin describes. Nice connection there thank you.
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