art of listening...

To truly listen one must be in a true state of emptiness to be filled with the information be presented. Regardless of whether this information is visual, physical or aural. When listening we are not just absorbing words or intent but meaning, framework and context from which the intended information is coming from. To achieve this, we must act from a place of empathy and harmony with others. To place ourselves in a headspace that allows us to be present for the person or persons providing the information we are to take on board. By listening affectively, and placing ourselves in the situation of others we stand a stronger chance of navigating a way forward when placed in a situation of change , agitation, discomfort or conflict.

problem solving & prioritising: part I

Years ago, I remember dropping a glass with liquid in it on stage during a performance. I could feel the condensation on the outside of the glass slowly undermine my grip of the glass. As it was slipping from my fingers; externally I was presence, delivering lines and listening for cues. Internally however I was developing a process to deal with the glass that was about to break at my feet and the feet of fellow cast members. My mind was developing a strategy for how to clean up the glass.  I even considered going off stage and getting a dust pan between my lines. I was even deciding on how to incorporate the soon to be broken glass on the floor into the scene should I have to or need to. The glass did indeed break and all ended well. However, what stuck with me the most after the show was how ordered and calm my thoughts were.

I am not suggesting that time slowed down in fact some research I discovered theorises that it is only our memory of an event that tricks us into thinking that time slowed down. I did feel like I had time to consider all my options though. The reference to time slowing down is usually when people are in a state of danger. While on stage performing a task with an element of risk, I am not in danger, although a stage fight could replicate a sense of danger, so possibly tricking the brain. What I am inferring here is that I was making some informed decisions under pressure. I had enough experiential training through years of being on stage to be calm under pressure and respond accordingly and remain present. 

How does all this help me now as an educator and choreographer of physical risk? I relish developing training methodologies that build a system for actors that align mind and body when they need to response to problem solving and multitasking should an accident arise. Like any form of conditioning training it would behove an actor to maintain a mindset that reinforces the understanding that an accident will eventually happen when performing movement with an element of risk. That way in the event of a near miss or accident the actor is not thrown. But rather has the presences of mind and body to remain calm. 

“Play with knives expect to get cut.” = “Performing slapstick expect a bruise.”

(Disclaimer: I am not advocating to push through injuries or to perform with a reckless mindset. What I’m entertaining here is that with a solid training approach, actors can safe guard themselves and be mentally and physically prepared for when things go wrong) 

Mental preparation in the training process is paramount if the actor wants a physically disciplined response. Therefore, I would theorise that the key to making an affective training system lies in the development of sensitivity and listening skills on a macro and micro level. At a level that involves a mental, aural, visual and tactile sensitivity to one’s immediate internal and external landscape.

Therefore; the trick is to develop exercises and tasks in training that replicate choices under pressure. The main principle of my approach is prioritising how to deal with; and respond accordingly to an issue or accident that arises. A way into this approach is to start looking for a range of variables within a spectrum of scenarios that an actor may find themselves in. By seeking the order in this spectrum of perceived chaos, one can start to reduce stress levels because a series of responses can be programmed in the conditioning training level.

Part II coming.... 

versatility & adaptability

The Emptiness Compass I have been referring to in some previous newsletter is comprised of 12 paired words. These paired words when used together are designed to help keep a participants and students focused on an exercise / task at hand to ensure they are remaining in process rather than a product or outcome driven mode. My musings for this week’s newsletter bring me to one set of those paired words: Versatility and Adaptability So, what do I mean by these words and what am I hoping a participant will gain by focusing on these two words?

These words have been a strong part of my life and indirectly my career. They are a reflection of my upbringing. From my first years at school I was, or rather my family was always moving from town to town. In fact, by the age of thirteen I had been to seven schools, and on one occasion I had returned to the same school on three times.

By the completion of my school years I had attended nine schools. The shortest length of time I spent at one school was six weeks. In the early years of my life my father was an advisory teacher (in the early 70’s) which meant - wherever he went... we all went! Not until the age of about 14 did my family finally stop in the one location and I was able to finish my education with some consistency.

My early years in life are ones of constant change. So in order to fit in quickly and smoothly I had to become versatile and adaptable. In recent years, I have come to realise that these early days of my development informed my approach to life and career. That is to say that I have subconsciously always sort to become adaptable and versatile at tackling my career and obstacles as they arise in my life. I believed it was important to understand these two elements of my ‘make-up’, versatility and adaptability; as it has informed my development as well as fuelled my curiosity towards every aspect of my performance career.

So how have these words informed my movement work to be more specific and why are they in my ‘emptiness compass’?

In simple terms we can strive to maintain consistency with any given choreography or movement sequence we are presented with and or have to perform in a repeated fashion. But regardless of rehearsals or the performance of any sequence the reality is that no matter how hard we try there are micro and macro differences happening and or going to happen.

Our bodies are no robots. We need to be open to the small shifts and big shifts that will inevitably happen. These shifts could be conscious, unconscious or by accident. They could be in the form of incorrect body placement, prop failure or the environment around us undermining us! These shifts could be; for example as a simply be a hand being placed palm up or palm down through to larger scale shifts happening; for example where a sword breaks. Either way if we are not adaptable or versatile in our training we will certainly not be in performance mode when things go ‘wrong’.

Maybe if we can train in a way that reflects the real world outcomes which allows for mistakes or differences to occur then maybe we are less likely to be thrown when it happens in performance. Just a thought...

empathy & harmony

The Emptiness Compass I use when navigating a participant’s journey is comprised of a series of paired words. The 12 paired words when used together are designed to help keep a participant focused on an exercise / task at hand to ensure they are remaining in process rather than product. My musings for this week’s newsletter bring me to one set of those paired words: empathy and harmony.

So, what do I mean by these words and what am I hoping a participant will gain by focusing on these two words?

Empathy. Let’s just check in with the definition as per the Oxford dictionary: The ability to understand and share the feelings of another. I have always been struck by a lack of empathy sometimes displayed by actors. By that I mean their lack of awareness of what their scene partner/s may or might be going through.

So, I started to generate a more formal and overt focus on ‘the other’ in my work. Trying to get the actor to think more about what are the obstacles faced by my partner or fellow actor while navigating choreography or a movement sequence. For example, an actor could ask themselves while pushing another actor to the floor: ‘how is this fellow actor dealing with wearing high heels and a long-complicated period dress as the try to fall?’

By simply framing a question like that: ‘how is my fellow actor dealing with x?’ Hopefully a stronger sense of empathy can be practised and then by developing that empathy an actor can feed into how they can better serve a fellow actor’s physical journey. With a desired outcome that creates better cohesion and therefore better physical storytelling.

Harmony. The Oxford gives us couple of meanings which are helpful: The quality of forming a pleasing and consistent whole. The state of being in agreement or concord. Like empathy my reason for investing in this word was driven by noticing a lack of harmony in a lot of work I have seen over the years. Not always but often I see actors in their own head. I may have remembered this incorrectly but I seem to remember in Uta Hagen’s book (maybe Respect for Acting forgive me my books are in storage), she made mention that a lot of young actors often when first reading a play will usually just look for their part. Rather than the whole story.

What I took away from that in my early days as an actor was the lack of seeing the whole picture.  That has continued to sit with me as I witness actors not seeing the whole sequences of some movement or choreography but rather just their own bit within it. So, by bringing about a focus on harmony I am aiming to achieve an awareness of the whole. Blending is a word used in aikido a lot. I sometimes like to use that word as well.

Well hope that has helped you gain some smaller insight to why and how those words have come to mean something to me in my journey.

listening & sensitivity

These are two words I often use in class. But what do I mean by them? Moreover, what am I expecting participants to learn and or gain from focusing on them? I guess in simple terms ‘listening’ is more than just the use of our ears. And it’s not just ‘listening’ to another actor.

When I say ‘listen’ I am referring to listening to;

·         The energy in the space

·         To partner through empathy

·         Fellow cast members around you

·         Direction

·         The crew

·         The audience

·         The prop/s you are working with

·         The set

·         The elements

·         To gravity

Sensitivity for me in the context of my training methods is my access point for better listening. The space between what/whom I am listening to and where my point of focused listening is coming from.

For example, I could be just holding a ladder in a scene. So how am I ‘listening’ to the ladder? Through conscious use of sensitivity, I could ask: How am I holding it? What material is it made of? How is gravity acting upon it? My sensitivity of touch, how light or firm I am holding the ladder allows me to be in harmony with it. That sensitivity of touch allows me to listen to my prop to gain the best working relationship with and how I can help it move in space.

Through a more developed sense of listening via sensitivity I am hoping to increase a participant’s ability to be at one with everything around them while in the moment of performance.

one day they will find out I am fraud...

I have always wanted to get a shirt made up that say: One Day They Will Find Out I am Fraud!!! Because I not only; live in the “here and now”, but I surf the” here and now”!  A delicate blade of risk, an edge that I could fall on either side of, however I trust myself as an artist, I must!  I never know what I am going to teach on the floor or what choices I will make on the floor (as an actor, director, fight director) – I have guide posts sure – but I need to see what is out there? What people I will be working with combined with the content.

Each new day brings a creative opportunity maybe that is all I am saying here –I am in a constant state; a creative state – I am not religious but I am extremely spiritual – I guess at the heart of it I am closest to a Taoist but I have tweaked that word over the years to mean (for me) a Nowist – Loa Tsu’s best phrase for me is – “The way that can be talked of –is not the way” – for me that encapsulates everything we do as artists and everything we do when trying to pass knowledge on to artists explaining acting cannot be locked down and it cannot be explained sometimes – it needs to BE experienced, I always say to student I am not here to “teach” (I do dislike that word) – I am here to share joy, discoveries, mistakes and fuck ups – that is my “way” of helping to point them in a way that they can best discover their “way”.... When I have a class – it should feel like we have in some way just created something – does that make sense, a class doesn’t just have to be in a vacuum...

random thoughts of a new horizon...

The narrative in my head now given my age is to be more succinct with my education.

What fascinates me is that it doesn’t matter what I teach I get amazed at the lack of specifics most student don’t pick up on – they appeared to be obsessed with getting it right and the net loss is the details and specifics. It impossible  for an actor to look at the entire picture (by picture I mean choreography or sequence of movement etc) presented to them and then up load that and perform it straight away with extreme accuracy. I would even go so far as to say there is a disconnect between the upper body and the lower body in young actors today.

So what and how do I help to create a more detailed and specific physical actor ? That is my dramatic question.

My Principles are:

• Process (working through something)
• Product (result)
• Content (task / exercise at hand)

During the exercises I set; students always struggle to
remain in process because they will think the content
is asking them for a product.

My belief is that to stay in a process a student needs to be in a state of emptiness. So to keep them in a state of emptiness I use this compass to help them navigate their own journey. The 12 points on the compass are access points for me to unpack further concepts and ideas. None of these words are original it's more about how I have arranged them in this compass.
 

EMPITNESS COMPASS

Chaos & Order

 Spirit & Energy

Listening & Sensitivity

Time & Space

Structure & Alignment

Function & Form

Empathy & Harmony

Patience & Understanding

Versatility & Adaptability

Truth & Logic

Contrast & Contradiction

Problem Solving & Prioritising 

The combination of the Emptiness Compass and the Principles makes up my iOS. To have a deeply well programmed iOS one needs to develop deep processing power. Once you have that the iOS runs in the background so one can make deliberate choices. To extend the metaphor a little; learning a waltz, sword fight, footwork, slapstick routine or any other expression of movement for story telling are just the 'aps' that are opened up and run by the iOS.

This is how I navigate an actor’s development and what is happening in the room for me so I can make a choice about their journey. And truly speak to the moment as a teach / to go where the class or moment is taking me and therefore truly be there for the student.