Sound and Movement Mirror 4 страница

Every exercise in this training expands awareness. Awareness is see­ing. We use the term "blind rage" meaning sightless, out-of- control rage. As soon as rage becomes insightful rage, it boils within an awareness con­text. The one who rages knows what's going on. She is safe to rage. No one will get hurt. The more awareness is expanded, the more capacity i.e., control, the student has to unleash, uncork, and liberate wildness.

Wildness has nothing to do with content, but is defined by freedom. Feeling free, we feel unencumbered. We're not advocating a "wildness" theater or even tantrums. But, until a student can uninhibitedly express

her every feeling, she can't really know if her constraints are from aes­thetic or practical choice, or from fear of reprisal.

John releases his line. The fish pulls away and for a few moments swims wildly toward freedom. Then, John starts winding the reel, tightening the line, wrestling the fish into shore. Then, he lets it out again, and again the fish takes off and again John reels it in. Back and forth, release and tighten, release and tighten. They fight with one another. All the time the fish is coming closer in to shore, until finally John lifts it from the water, frees it from the hook and sends it back to the sea.

John alternates between control and letting go. We do the same thing. From the release of Episodes, we'll reel our attention to the rigors of listening.

15B. Face the Music

• Find a partner. One of you, A, begins by tapping a rhythmic pattern on
the floor with your feet. The other, B, repeats the pattern. If B has difficulty
repeating the pattern, A repeats it until B gets it. Don't discuss it. Talk to each
other through your feet. Now, B taps a pattern on the floor and A repeats
it. Switch roles back and forth, each time developing more complex pat­
terns. Do this without looking at your, or your partner's, feet.

• The next step: Instead of tapping your feet, move different body parts—
arms, little finger or knee—and do a rhythmic pattern that your partner then
repeats. Again, alternate back and forth while increasing complexity.

• Step three: Change the expression of your face rhythmically. Have these
facial expressions express changing inner states. Alternate turns and, again,
go for increasingly complicated patterns.

• Make it hard for each other.

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n many cases, music is simply sequential rhythmic patterns and silence. Musical relationships exist whether we notice them or not. Time pat­terns are always going on whether we notice them or not. One action follows another whether we notice that or not.

Face the Music is a "practice your scales" and focus exercise. The sensor)' receptors' ability to distinguish more and more complicated information increases with practice. So does the ability to translate that information into action. Students experience that action embedded in a moment-to-moment chain of change. Any distractions from the task at hand result in missed beats, lost information.

We control, mask, immobilize and don't feel the face more than any other part of their body. In Step Three of this exercise, the expressions of the face reflect inner condition. To change these expressions in a rhyth­mical pattern while truly being "in" them, requires the student to, in a sense, step back from his face and feel it as separate from him. It is an object with bones, muscles and flesh. It moves. He can dance with his face.

Both Episodes and Face the Music work at the underpinnings of improvisation. The first invites freedom, the second, control.

15C. Shift with Initiator

• Find a partner. You're going to do a "shift" exercise together. You're both
in the same world, or scene, and you're shifting your actions more or less
simultaneously. However, one of you will always shift first, as the primary
shifter, and the other will always shift slightly afterwards as the secondary
shifter. Your shifts are always a response.

• Keep this perspective. You're making scenes together. The primary shifter
provides half of the scene. The secondary shifter completes the other half.

• Even though you're in the same scene and responding to each other, your

forms of expression must differ. If the primary shifter is only moving, the sec­ondary shifter must either speak or sound. If the primary shifter is using sound and movement, the secondary shifter has the options of sounding from a still body, or moving without sound or speech.

• Here are the options:

Movement only

Sound only

Speech only

Sound and movement

Movement and speech

Speech and sound

Movement, sound and speech

• You'll do this for ten minutes, discuss it and then switch primary and sec­
ondary roles.

You're walking down the street. A car screeches. You respond.

The stew boils over. You respond.

There's a knock on the door. You respond.

The phone rings. You respond.

A stranger says, "How are you?" You respond.

These are ordinary circumstances. But how about these?

A child flies by your front door.

Someone is laughing uncontrollably an inch from your face.

A door, hanging in space, is opening and closing over and over

again. Someone spins in circles next to you, making wordless

stuttering sounds. Someone kneels at your feet, holding his breath, smiling.

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esponses to less ordinary happenings need not take any more time than responses to ordinary ones. Quickness requires only innocence, which we had when we were young; life could contain just about any­thing. Anything was believable.

What makes any primary or secondary actions "real?" When a child flies by your door, what makes that real? Belief. If the student believes that the child is flying by their door, then the child is flying by their door. Really. Response erupts from belief. Not as an interesting idea, but as truth at that moment.

In Day Eleven, the It Responds exercise prepared the student for this type of sophisticated structure. In Shift with Initiator both the pri­mary and the secondary shifters are responding to each other. The sce­nario flows, one scene leading to the next. Students have to focus on content and building "scenes." They hold the content lightly so that the moments of action don't have to connect literally, but can stretch beyond the borders of normal.

Content varies from student to student. Some students thrive in fan­tasy, surreal, and non-sequitur realms. Others are more political, or psy­chological. Some draw from natural history, science, or myth. Some are funny, some serious. Some are more kinetic, some, more vocal. Some have a way with language. The entire universe is in the studio, embod­ied as students.

On occasion, a student wants to be normal. They want to respond in a "normal" way. Once one's awareness expands, "normal" becomes nuances, detail, and awesome peculiarities. Everything is normal, and everything isn't. Normal isn't normal anymore and every perspective is heightened.

Reframe

Refraining is another inroad into the imagination. Through her action, the secondary shifter may re-frame, or change the meaning, of the pri­mary shifter's actions. She can paint another picture around the action to change its context and meaning. For example:

A is rapidly and desperately blowing on her hands to cool them,

off as if they are too hot.

B reframes by selling her as a new kind of air-conditioner. A is moving slow-motion, obviously euphoric, describing his

gravity-less atmosphere. B reframes by aggressively playing him as a pin ball machine.

As in It Responds, the secondary shifts, here, are required to be expressively different. In addition to the options listed above in the exer­cise, they must differ formally in time, space, shape and tension. As expe­rience accumulates, this just happens. B wants to "sense" their action, clearly defined, in relation to As. Students are drawn to the strength of counterpoint and difference.

Remember:

Everything your partner does is perfect. Your partner is perfectly being himself, always. Make whatever your partner does work. Your partners action is only action. It's not totally his, and is certainly not yours. Action is just action.

Also, remember:

Everything you do is perfect.

You are perfectly being yourself, always.

What you do works.

Your action is only action. Action is not a persons being.

On the one hand, we talk about "no separation" and on the other "clear boundaries." These are different ways of saying "separation." These are contradictory if we confuse action with identity. Neither we, nor our partners, are what we do. We're awareness. In awareness there's no "I," no separation of I, me, mine, you, yours. At the "We" or the "I" level, separation enters and boundaries between who I am and who you are become important. In this theater, we play freely with both constructs: "We," "You," and "I" as fiction, and the self we normally experience. We

aren't rigidly bound into one conception of self.

A student can judge, criticize, be confused about, or question her partners action. Or she can accept her partners action as perfect, per­fectly what it is. How can it be anything else, really? As identification slips away from action, the student perceives all action, hers and her partners, as impersonal and unowned. With ownership comes judgment, evaluation, comparison. Without ownership, each action stands perfectly.

15D. Solo Shifts

• Separate from your partner and practice shifts on your own. You have no
director. The timing of your shifts is up to you. Don't say "shift" to yourself.
Just shift whenever the impulse strikes. Remember, the shifts must be very
different in form from each other.

• Now, work with this perspective. Begin with a primary shift. At some point
respond with a secondary shift. As that becomes primary to the next response,
make the next shift. Remember the boundless frame.

Partners with Me

We're always in partnership with ourselves. It's evident when we see people on the street talking to themselves. We consider that aberrant behavior. But we talk to ourselves too, don't we? If we have any sense, we just don't do it noticeably. So who's talking and to whom? Isn't the talker talking to the listener? Then the listener responds as talker, talk­ing to the listener, who before was the talker. So the talker and the lis­tener are one and two at the same time. Primary, secondary, primary, secondary...

In all improvisations, every moment responds to the one before, whether they're micro-moments inside a developing shift, or the shifts, themselves. One moment talks to the next.

15E. Performance Score: Solo Shifts

• Everyone please leave the floor and sit in a line as audience. You'll each
do a performance of shifts, one, two or three minutes, your choice. We'll
begin at one end of the line and continue in order.

• We'll pass a watch. You'll each time the person who proceeds you. When
you get up for your turn, tell your timer how many minutes you want. Timer,
call out, "Stop," loud and clear when the minute, or minutes, run out.

^^_ •

blinks. It depends on the accompa­nying qualities of pain or pleasure. And that depends on whether the stu­dent is directly experiencing or not. In direct experience, pain and plea­sure, like freedom and control, nor­mal and abnormal, become irrelevant. A student's choice of one, two, or three minutes generally reflects her anticipated pain or pleasure. It's not always that logical. These time choices in themselves are subject to explo­ration. Some go for three minutes just so they can then have the opportunity to explore that experience of uncom-fortableness. Others may go for one minute because they don't want to have too much pleasure. Examples of feedback on solos:

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t's not uncommon that one's sense of time changes when in front of an audience. One minute can feel like a day and three minutes, a few

Instead of reporting on what you're doing, be what you're

doing.

You shift prematurely. Don't rush. Immerse yourself. Have your shifts come from your body energy, not your head. You're thinking up your next shift while you're still doing your

last. Relax and let the shifts take care of themselves. If it's fear you're feeling, deal with it. Investigate it. Move into

it. The sensations. Build a story around it. You're complicating things. Let each shift stay where it began.

Don't add to it by making it more of anything. Accept it. 'Fess up. If some feeling is blocking your energy and fun, use it

as material for shifts. I see your outside, what you're doing. I want to see your inside,

what you're being. Relax, relax, relax.

We're exploding the boundaries between infancy and adulthood, lucidity and lunacy, humanity and bestiality, banal and sacred states. The experience of entering and surviving these states grants permission to explore even further, continually expanding the limits of the conceivable

and the expressible. Our frame expands to include all univer­sal experience as equal and the same, within awareness.

Day Sixteen

Relationship

16A. Space Between

16B. Chords

16C. Ensemble: Walk/Run/"Ah"

16D. Shift By Interruption

16E. 1/3-1/3-1/3

16F. Angels

16G. Performance Score: Disparate Dialogue

We shape our experience?

Isn't that how we see the world?

As shapes of things?

We fill in space,

with shape.

We see space within shape.

We name shape

as tree, cookie, smile,

sadness, house or mathematics.

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ften we don't name, we just sense. We sense the space/shape of our body, through motion, kinetically. We sense the space/shape outside of our body, through sight and hearing. We may sense the space /shape inside and outside our body as inseparable. One isn't with­out the other, since the shape of the body affects the space around it, and vice-versa.

16A. Space Between

• Everyone, spread out in the room and find a place to stand.

• Your feet are shoulder width apart, arms relaxed by your sides. Take the
next few breaths to quiet yourself, rid the tension from your body. Stop talk­
ing to yourself internally.

• Become aware of the sensation of your head resting on your spine. Your
spine rises up out of the center of your pelvis. Your pelvis floats freely around
the tops of your legs. Separate all of your bones, starting with your toes and
moving up your legs, into your pelvis, up your spine, the bones of your rib
cage, shoulder girdle, down your arms and fingers, your neck bones, and
all the bones that hold your head.

• Sense the space between the soles of your feet and top of your head and
the shape of that space. Explore movement that changes and rearranges
that space/shape. Feel free to move around the room, and at any speed
you want. Enjoy yourself.

• Now, explore movement that rearranges the space/shape between your
shoulders and the soles of your feet... now your shoulders and your knees
... your knees and the palms of your hands... the palms of your hands and
your back... your back and your front... your shoulders and your pelvic
girdle... your head and your pelvis... your head, your hands and your
pelvis... your head, your hands, your pelvis and the soles of your feet...

• In the next few minutes, connect with someone near you. Focus on the
space/shape between you. Improvise movement that rearranges that
space/shape.

^^ •

Space Between expands physical awareness. The exercise is not about conjuring up mental pictures, memories or emotions. This is focused attention on the body, the inside the body, the body in motion and in space. It crowds out the conceptual mind, offers it no room to think.

Most of us, if asked, wouldn't be able to say how our feet are posi­tioned while we brush our teeth in the morning. Nor would we be able to describe the position of our spine as we hand a police officer our dri­vers license. Even most actors and professional performers, don't track the body.

Space Between searches out the still point that always resides within us. It mutes conceptual activity, an energy that feeds past and future. We do this by bringing our attention into the body. Present time. Now. Our still point is the present; it's the relaxed state where awareness always is. Resting in the still point we brush our teeth, relate to the police offi­cer, dance in our room or perform miracles on stage. Steady. Unswerved by the vast array of stimulation.

Now, we'll listen to space, and shape it, with the sound of "ah." The inside of the mouth will shape "ah" and that "ah" will shape a wave of sound through space.

16B. Chords

• Lef's stand in a circle. We'll move around the circle making three pitched
chords. I'll begin by making an "ah" sound on a particular pitch, and I'll
hold it while the person next to me joins in with an "ah" sound on a differ­
ent pitch. We'll both hold our tones while the next person, the third, joins
with an "ah" on yet a different pitch. The first person ends the chord by ges­
turing, signalling us to stop. Then, the second person begins the next set.
These people must move quickly so that the first person doesn't run out of
breath. You can create harmony or cacophony, just be sure to always have
three different pitches in each chord.

• Again, let's go around in sets of three. This time I'll tone two "ah" sounds,
each on a different pitch, and hold the last. Each person who joins the chord,
also, tones two different "ah" pitches and holds his or her last. All six pitches
must be different.

• Let's change our timing. We'll return to a single pitch and proceed in stac­
cato fashion. Don't hold your tone. Each "ah" is short, abrupt, and per­
cussive. We'll build up speed as we circle with faster and faster chords.
Stay relaxed.

Jonah stands in the circle. His face is paler than usual. He looks so serious. Jonahs terrified. He's never been able to sing, let alone carry a tune. He's been told he's tone deaf. He believes it. His turn is getting closer. Now, it's upon him. He opens his mouth and he hears a scrawny, squeaky, scratchy, vibrating sound that starts and stops, wavers and finally collapses altogether. He tries again. He's sweating and his face is burning. And then again. Finally the person next to him sounds over him and the circle resumes. Nobody's looking at Jonah. Again his turn is getting closer...

Many of us come to this exercise with devastating singing experi­ences from the past, at school, in community organizations, with friends or family. These past events turn our present task into a personal chal­lenge, or a torment. All we can do is notice this experience as clearly as possible and, while holding it, listen. Hear the sounds as they come to us. Our old identifications fade away as interest in the present phenomena we're making together grows. Let the "ahs" grow itself into an amazing event.

16C. Ensemble: Walk/Run/"Ah"

• You'll do a sound and movement ensemble event. Here's how it goes.
First, everyone find a place on the floor and stand in relation to one another.
In this improvisation, you only have three movement choices: walk, run or
stand still. That's all. Nothing fancy. Stay simple.

• Here's where the sound comes in: your movement must always be accom­
panied with an "ah" sound. The "ah" sound corresponds energetically with

the movement and lasts as long as the movement does. They happen simu faneously. So, if you're taking a short relaxed step, the accompanying "ah sound is the same short duration, and the same relaxed energy.

• You're playing off each other. You will acutely listen and watch each off
ers' sounds and moves. Designing the spatial and choral patterns togethe
Every sound and every movement you make is relevant to what's alread
going on.

• Each "ah" sound you make starts and ends the same, on one pitch. Bi
you can make it different. If, for instance, you're walking, each step ani
breath may be a different pitch.

Pome examples of directorial comments:

Stop. Begin again. Too much is going on. Listen more.

Stop. Start over. Too much is going on. This is not the time for you to individually trip off into creativity. Remember, you're in an ensemble.

Stop. Begin again. Make sure you know how the "ah" tones you contribute clearly relate and fit into the whole sound.

Stop. Begin again. Sparsely this time. Allow for silence and stillness.

Stop. Begin again. You can't really have more than two rhythms going on. Not yet. Not until you've mastered listening skills more completely. Then, you'll be able to interweave many different rhythms. If you're "ah-ing" and others come in with a different pattern, either join them, adjust so that the patterns coexist (you should enjoy hearing them together) or stop. Allow yourself to be interrupted. And likewise, if there are patterns going on and you want to introduce a new pattern, know that it will either inter­rupt what is going on or will coexist with it. Of course, you may wait for an opportune moment, but, by then, you'll probably have

a different impulse anyway. Don't hold on to any ideas. They're probably relevant only at the first moment of you have them.

Stop. Begin again. Clarify your spatial patterns. As with the sound, you may have to limit yourself to two or fewer patterns. Of course, those patterns will change. Your collective awareness will determine how many different patterns the improvisation may contain at any moment. You all need to know what the com­plete action and sound is at all times.

With all these warnings, a student might be afraid to make any kind of move, let alone crash through a safe, secure, neat and orderly impro­visation, where everybody's joining, supporting, and listening. Safe, secure, neat and orderly improvisations may or may not cushion challenges, or even catastrophes. But it's always worth a try. Without catastrophes, what was safe, secure, neat, and orderly becomes too safe, secure, neat and orderly and threatens the liveliness of the improvisation.

Of course, the person who brings in a catastrophe (a primary shift of extraordinarily different content that grabs the focus of the scene) must discern the proper moment to make his mark. His action must fall into space with listening. Then, he's free to turn the improvisation around, shift it, stand by his action and relate to the consequences.

16D. Shift by Interruption

• Get into trios, standing in neutral. This improvisation focuses on a direct relationship between the partners, and will begin once one of you shifts. The shifts may be forms of movement only, sound and movement, speech and movement, sound alone, speech alone, sound and speech together, or speech, movement and sound combined. Whatever expresses your content most appropriately. Develop the shift until one of your partners interrupts with another shift. Each shift should be a response to the previous one. When you're interrupted, freeze your action immediately. Your partner devel­ops their shift until either you or the other partner interrupts, again with a

different shiff that's a response. Continue to switch back and forth this way, the interruptions coming randomly from any partner at any time.

• The instant you get interrupted, freeze, or pause, and hold that shape
until your next shift.

• Each of your shifts will be different, since you always respond to what
you interrupt.

• Remember, you're always responding to each other's timing, shaping,
use of space, dynamics and content. Use the whole room. You don't need
to be confined to the area you're in right now. Particularly focus on the
space/shape relation between your body and your partner's.

^^ •

Direct/Indirect Relationship Again

Remember, when people are improvising in groups (two or more), their relationship may be direct or indirect. In an indirect relationship the partners don't look at each other, or, if they do, it's without recognition. In a sense, they play side-by-side, or parallel. They're aware of each other, and each other's actions, and use that information in their side-by-side play. Their content may be related but doesn't have to be. They're only interacting through the formal (time, space, shape, dynamics) aspects of their actions.

In Shift by Interruption relationships are direct. The partners are talking to each other—action-response—as curious and feeling human beings sharing their inner worlds. They look directly at each other when appropriate. They're communicating within the same context, the same story or situation. They're in the same time, space and place. They believe one another's actions are true and real, and respond from their personal resource.

Alternating allows them to experience their separateness and feel their action in relation to the others'. Having the partner stay still while the other is active breaks up the habitual need for concurrent response.

Each action stands alone. The links are temporarily broken.

In direct relationship, what goes on inside of those pauses? Atten­tion stays focused on the partner's actions, alert and receptive to the ongoing events. Feelings may change in response. These feelings lead to the next shift. An audience watching would see the performer's face registering their inner process, whether the performer is listening, think­ing, feeling, emoting, spacing out, planning or judging. All this takes place in pause.

When students relate to each other's content directly, their impro­visations often become mundane, ordinary, "real-life" like. Content con­stricts and becomes predictable. The physical relationships become subordinate to the story or emotional interchange between the actors. The improvisation loses its energetic and visual appeal.

Rather than just focusing on the narrow content field, students need to perceive all aspects of current action, the how as well as the what. In detail. The choral aspects of speech, tones, and rhythms. These impro­visations are not to be necessarily realistic. They are to broaden their vision of life, not copy it. Interruptions are important components of the music. Each shift is the next piece of rhythmic interplay between voices and bodies. Students need not be polite. Students don't have to wait for a partner to conclude before they interrupt, but they should always remain curious as to what their partner is up to. They don't blindly cut off their partner as soon as they have an impulse. These interruptions result from a balanced interaction between impulsive curiosity and a sense of music.

We'll take this "Shift by Interruption" a step further, widening the possibilities of choice.

16E. 1/3-1/3-1/3

• In trios. Now, you're always active, no longer alternating turns. Proceed through the improvisation by shifting. You're always in the same world/scene and your relationship is direct.

• Whenever you shift, you have three choices. You can:

1. Introduce new material,

2. Do what your partner is doing, by joining him or her in form and
content,

3. Be still and silent, in pause.

• Keep a balance between these three choices, generally 1/3 of the total
time in each. So, 1/3 of the time you initiate, 1/3 you copy, and 1/3 you're
still and silent.

• Whenever you shift, there's some thread in your internal world (subtext)
that connects one shift to the next. When you choose to do what your part­
ner is doing, that choice must make sense to you. It must, in some way, fit

,^»» ui w\poiicnce. d& ciear why you're changing from your action to theirs. Don't pick up their action, just for the sake of it, unless, of course that in itself is the thread. Dividing your time into these thirds invites balance. It places equal value on the choices of initiat­ing, joining, and pausing. We all have habits that make one of these com­mon to us or more difficult. This forces us to explore what it feels like to do the less accustomed mode. Subtext The subtext of an action refers to the thoughts, feelings, or emotion that the performer is experiencing, but

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