Week Three of Basics: Imagination, Core awareness, and Plasticity

This past week, Margi went into the basics of our core training.  Introducing some basic vocabulary and concepts, and sketching out one of our basic core building regimens, she and Erika worked with pairs of actors in trying these out and and giving prompts and adjustments to maximize the core engagement while keeping the instrument open and available.
Moving into the Physical training we focused on how engaging the imagination can create an inner life that can coax the body into surpassing what it perceives as its own comfort zone.
Our plasticity training comes out of  working with energy flows.  Having imagined the energy flows in the blue wave, red wave, both waves together and the Big X, we asked the actors to take ALL the energy they just accessed and localize it between the thumb and first finger.  The image I like is a little supernova of energy shining between your closed circuit of the thumb and first finger.  Then we anchor this point by imagining a laser going above and below; a single vertical line.  From there, we add four more lasers extending to the four compass points, imaginatively creating six chords of energy that anchor this point. Keeping the fingers closed on the point, we ask the actors to keep the point where it is, and let the body/arm adjust to this as we take one step toward the point and one step away, keeping the finger circuit as the fixed point and letting the body move to adjust to it.  Then two steps back and forth from the fixed point, then three.  Choosing a new point each time and anchoring it in the imagination in the same way, the actor then examines the point from all angles and perspectives... allowing the body to bend, stretch, move, in order to bring our eyes around the fixed point.  This is the beginning of "tricking the lazy body" into taking shapes that are demanded by the imagination and getting the body to discover new configurations while conforming to an imagined prompt.
This same principle is involved with the string exercise:
Closing the fingers around the supernova and sending a laser up and down, the actor imagines inclining this string of energy to an angle (first, an angle of about 45 degrees, but this is expanded to include other angles later in the exercise)  Then following this "string" of energy, the actor traces the trajectory of the string to the ground, allowing the body to conform to the demands of the exercise, and noticing when the body wants to be "lazy:"  taking shortcuts, bending to a quicker endpoint, stopping before reaching the destination.
Then we begin a process of following more strings of different angles and configurations, going from the point as an origin, to the end of its trajectory, obeying the imagination to its end and guiding the body to follow it precisely.
"Commit to your choices,"  we've often heard in class or rehearsal.  This simple exercise asks you to make specific choices:  where does the string start? what is its angle?  where does the imagination show me its destination?  Once the angle is determined by the original impulse of the angle, the body playfully commits to this demand of the imagination.
Then we look at the room full of strings, and in a similar manner go through some webs of strings, over some, under others.  Again the body finds itself in interesting shapes merely from a specific imaginative prompt.
Plasticity Variation Two involves moulding walls of clay of various heights and scooping out mouseholes, windows and thin doors, then going through them... as well as the others made by our fellow actors.
Plasticity Variation Three is based on the commedia "bowl of soup" lazzo where the actor carrying a bowl of soup goes into different positions without spilling the soup.
Each of these is a way to expand the vocabulary of the body beyond its normal daily comfort zone.  Employing the imagination and allowing it to make demands on the body allows us to play into a more expansive body.
Work with the Director's Lab began our exploration of material about the 17th century Venetian Jewish poet Sarra Coppia Sulam. Peter's work with the actors explored the dynamics of communicating only by letters.  How do we express this, how do we show this? Kelley's work was about the boldness of Sarra's individuality and the restraints or conditions that evoke bold action from individuals.
Leave comments or fill in the blanks for me :)
George