I had an experience at an audition last week that surprised me.
I was standing in line outside of "the room." Six or seven fellow auditioners were in front of me which meant I had approx five minutes 'til 'showtime'. I had done a vocal warm-up in the break room and had rolled down my spine a few times in preparation. My monologue was neatly tucked away in my mind and my outward appearance was clean and groomed.
But something didn't feel right. I was unfocused. I studied myself and found that my gut-more specifically my solar plexus- felt restless.
I proceeded to roll down my spine again. It didn't do much for me.
I impulsively grabbed a point in space between my thumb and my index finger. I began to draw line with it through space with at a 45 degree angle.
It woefully fell off course. It veered off into a point on the wall roughly five feet off the ground. From that point I drew another line. It began to travel straight and then it fell off course again, shaking a bit in the process.
At first this was frustrating. My solar plexus went from feeling restless to feeling annoyed.
I stopped. I took a breath. I made a decision. I simply decided to be fascinated-even titilated-by the notion that my unfocused pre-audition energy was knocking my line of energy off of it's course. I grabbed another point in space from scratch. The line went off course, but this time to a lesser degree. I became more fascinated and curious at my lack of accuracy. I continued to do this, while remembering to breathe***.
I won't say that I ever reached the control and organic impulsivity that I desired. But the lines did become stronger and straighter as my intrigue grew. Much more so than they were before.
My curiosity SPURRED my imagination.
I walked into the audition wishing I had more time to experiment! For I knew that when I left the room, my energy would be different from the one I was playing with!
Great story of playing with the training and letting your will engage your imagination ... so it can in turn engage your energy and make it more intentional. Thanks for writing it up, Dan. -George
That is so cool Daniel. I am glad to hear you were inspired! I am missing training very much right now as I am in rehearsal for Romeo and Juliet and Zombies. But it always amazes me how our training comes flying into the room to help with so little effort now. Our director asked me and a fellow actor to play with the idea of being connected via a rope around our core center as we did a scene; also she wanted our legs "strong and rooted" while our upper bodies stayed very free and light. It was so natural to me to connect to those body images and really helped whereas my fellow actor got tripped up and felt she was "stuck" and "couldn't breathe." We wound up having a very fruitful discussion about how the breath can still move in the pelvis/pelvic floor/lower back even if one is "rooted" or "grounded." I felt fortunate that I could take what the director was giving and translate it into an exercise I knew and loved from Magis and really made so much sense in the scene.
Tonight's training felt very productive for me. George and Erika and Gabe all addressed some questions which had been posed online in the blog. In terms of functionality of the work we've been doing, and engaging it in performance, George described it as having a room that doesn't have an outlet where you would want there to be one. The point of the work is create outlets for ourselves when we may not have anything to connect to. I thought that was a very good analogy. Erika ran the Alexander – Pilates work today. I felt my core working hard today as we went through the strengthening exercises. It was difficult but I felt that I had developed a great deal in my core since last class and the pain I had been feeling in my lower back had gone away. When we got to the Red wave work today, George told us to imagine the cosmos above us containing all the stars and space and allow that to fuel us for the flow of energy. For some reason that really helped me get a better understanding of how the red wave is directed. I'm still having trouble with having it flow out of my feet at the end, and combining both red and blue waves together, but that's ok. I am where I am in the training and that's good. An exercise that I always tend to forget about, and I'm not sure why, because I love it so much, is the centers exercise. We tap an area of our body and allow the blue wave to throw our body in motion and push through a barrier we create with our hand in front of the designated body part. Either forehead, nose, heart, gut, hips, knees, etc. Every time we do this exercise, even though we use the same body parts each time, I find a new way of walking and thinking. It is dynamic and interesting and I drop into it very easily. This will be great for exploring character physicality. Later, we did some work with partners today. I worked with Andy. She and I had to choose lines from a script of sorts which was given to us. The lines were phrases from the letters of Copia and Ceba. We did a rendezvous/seduction scene which then turned into a duel. It was nice to work with her. Although we were a little confused by the exercise at first we made what we could out of it and by the end we were starting to create a coherent story of two lovers meeting in secret and then quarreling to an almost deadly end. --John
Daniel- I love the story. Thanks for sharing that.
Training with Magis has led me to think more about the nature of true creativity on stage, and I think it lies in allowing for and giving over to pure curiosity in performance situations. Lately I have been working hard to rid my work, especially old audition monologues, of stale indication- that kind of overly rehearsed and unfelt presentation where the artistic curiosity is not engaged and the body goes through a set of motions without spurring the imagination.
The question, then, is how to ignite that curiosity when it refuses to stir. There are many means by which I can spark my own artistic curiosity, and I sometimes have to go through several methods before finding an approach that is working for me that day, or that moment. These are the "outlets" George had mentioned. In the last few weeks, I have found that I have a greater sense of bravery in plugging in to these outlets at auditions because I have been training those different muscles in a safe environment on Tuesdays and feeling their power to spark my creativity.
I'm boiling things down for myself to this mantra: be brave enough to be truly curious. That curiosity puts me out on a ledge where I can go anywhere, and never to the same place twice.
"Magis" is the Latin word for "more." It represents our desire to continue to strive for the "more" that theatre has to offer to artists, students and audiences alike. More Life. less stuff.
6 comments:
I had an experience at an audition last week that surprised me.
I was standing in line outside of "the room." Six or seven fellow auditioners were in front of me which meant I had approx five minutes 'til 'showtime'. I had done a vocal warm-up in the break room and had rolled down my spine a few times in preparation. My monologue was neatly tucked away in my mind and my outward appearance was clean and groomed.
But something didn't feel right. I was unfocused. I studied myself and found that my gut-more specifically my solar plexus- felt restless.
I proceeded to roll down my spine again. It didn't do much for me.
I impulsively grabbed a point in space between my thumb and my index finger. I began to draw line with it through space with at a 45 degree angle.
It woefully fell off course. It veered off into a point on the wall roughly five feet off the ground. From that point I drew another line. It began to travel straight and then it fell off course again, shaking a bit in the process.
At first this was frustrating. My solar plexus went from feeling restless to feeling annoyed.
I stopped. I took a breath. I made a decision. I simply decided to be fascinated-even titilated-by the notion that my unfocused pre-audition energy was knocking my line of energy off of it's course. I grabbed another point in space from scratch. The line went off course, but this time to a lesser degree. I became more fascinated and curious at my lack of accuracy. I continued to do this, while remembering to breathe***.
I won't say that I ever reached the control and organic impulsivity that I desired. But the lines did become stronger and straighter as my intrigue grew. Much more so than they were before.
My curiosity SPURRED my imagination.
I walked into the audition wishing I had more time to experiment! For I knew that when I left the room, my energy would be different from the one I was playing with!
Great story of playing with the training and letting your will engage your imagination ... so it can in turn engage your energy and make it more intentional. Thanks for writing it up, Dan.
-George
That is so cool Daniel. I am glad to hear you were inspired!
I am missing training very much right now as I am in rehearsal for Romeo and Juliet and Zombies.
But it always amazes me how our training comes flying into the room to help with so little effort now.
Our director asked me and a fellow actor to play with the idea of being connected via a rope around our core center as we did a scene; also she wanted our legs "strong and rooted" while our upper bodies stayed very free and light. It was so natural to me to connect to those body images and really helped whereas my fellow actor got tripped up and felt she was "stuck" and "couldn't breathe." We wound up having a very fruitful discussion about how the breath can still move in the pelvis/pelvic floor/lower back even if one is "rooted" or "grounded." I felt fortunate that I could take what the director was giving and translate it into an exercise I knew and loved from Magis and really made so much sense in the scene.
Tonight's training felt very productive for me. George and Erika and Gabe all addressed some questions which had been posed online in the blog. In terms of functionality of the work we've been doing, and engaging it in performance, George described it as having a room that doesn't have an outlet where you would want there to be one. The point of the work is create outlets for ourselves when we may not have anything to connect to. I thought that was a very good analogy.
Erika ran the Alexander – Pilates work today. I felt my core working hard today as we went through the strengthening exercises. It was difficult but I felt that I had developed a great deal in my core since last class and the pain I had been feeling in my lower back had gone away.
When we got to the Red wave work today, George told us to imagine the cosmos above us containing all the stars and space and allow that to fuel us for the flow of energy. For some reason that really helped me get a better understanding of how the red wave is directed. I'm still having trouble with having it flow out of my feet at the end, and combining both red and blue waves together, but that's ok. I am where I am in the training and that's good.
An exercise that I always tend to forget about, and I'm not sure why, because I love it so much, is the centers exercise. We tap an area of our body and allow the blue wave to throw our body in motion and push through a barrier we create with our hand in front of the designated body part. Either forehead, nose, heart, gut, hips, knees, etc. Every time we do this exercise, even though we use the same body parts each time, I find a new way of walking and thinking. It is dynamic and interesting and I drop into it very easily. This will be great for exploring character physicality.
Later, we did some work with partners today. I worked with Andy. She and I had to choose lines from a script of sorts which was given to us. The lines were phrases from the letters of Copia and Ceba. We did a rendezvous/seduction scene which then turned into a duel. It was nice to work with her. Although we were a little confused by the exercise at first we made what we could out of it and by the end we were starting to create a coherent story of two lovers meeting in secret and then quarreling to an almost deadly end.
--John
Daniel- I love the story. Thanks for sharing that.
Training with Magis has led me to think more about the nature of true creativity on stage, and I think it lies in allowing for and giving over to pure curiosity in performance situations. Lately I have been working hard to rid my work, especially old audition monologues, of stale indication- that kind of overly rehearsed and unfelt presentation where the artistic curiosity is not engaged and the body goes through a set of motions without spurring the imagination.
The question, then, is how to ignite that curiosity when it refuses to stir. There are many means by which I can spark my own artistic curiosity, and I sometimes have to go through several methods before finding an approach that is working for me that day, or that moment. These are the "outlets" George had mentioned. In the last few weeks, I have found that I have a greater sense of bravery in plugging in to these outlets at auditions because I have been training those different muscles in a safe environment on Tuesdays and feeling their power to spark my creativity.
I'm boiling things down for myself to this mantra: be brave enough to be truly curious. That curiosity puts me out on a ledge where I can go anywhere, and never to the same place twice.
Thanks Joe... I may be using that mantra from now on and sharing it widely.
- George
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