Enlightened

Gah – I had this ‘saved as draft’ but not ‘posted’. I guess that proves how tired I was after a week of physical theater :/

I’m so sorry, but here it is now.

This past week and my experience with physical theater has been nothing short of amazing. I don’t believe that I will be able to properly convey my sentiments on the practice in these simple words on a blog – however, I will try my best to do so, and I hope that whoever reads this will understand the impact this experience has made on my life. This was all an experience made possible by several people, and I will start by introducing the first.

Mark Hill – to be honest, I’m not sure what I expected from him. Did I even expect anything at all, I wonder? All I know is that when I first met him, when I introduced myself, I immediately thought, “Ah… I like this man.” As conceited as this may sound, it is rare for me to accept someone so easily, yet I feel that Mark has this air about him that makes you feel at ease and want to work hard. He has often spoken of giving his ‘energy’ and how he expects us to return it, and perhaps that is it. His energy and passion was conveyed to me, and perhaps that is what made him such a fascinating character. He made me want to take the opportunity, or as he puts it, the privilege that I might have otherwise passed up.

Now, who is he, and how does he factor into the past week? He was a teacher, a performer, and the person who guided the IB Theater class into the world of physical theater. He travels the world most of the year, holding workshops and teaching schools in several different continents as well as performing with other theater companies. His main practice is Butoh theater, but it is obvious from what he has taught us that he has been largely influenced by the ideologies of Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki as well. He has then taught these ideas to us.

With Bogart, we learned not a simple practice of theater, but how to be an actor. Mark has told us repeatedly throughout the week that to be an extraordinary actor, we need just four things: Energy, Focus, Physical Awareness, and Group Awareness.

I never knew just how… naïve I had been. It was never that I thought that acting was easy, no – far from it. However, this experience with physical theater has taught me that I have severely underestimated just how difficult it is to be the actor on stage.

Continuing with Bogart, we also learned to divide practices into three different categories: Body, Space, and Time.

Of the body there were shapes and gestures (we could make whole nonverbal performances with these alone – astounding!)

Of space, we learned of special relationships, lines, angles, counterpoint, architecture, so much (too little time, too little energy to truly convey how much I have learned) – however, I will take a moment to describe what I have learned about the architecture in particular, for it has made a particular impact on me. On one of the last days, the class was divided into four groups in which we had twenty minutes to create a three-scene performance utilizing the architecture.

This was something new and amazing.

It was simply eye-opening to see how different people thought to use the same architecture in different ways and just how many possibilities there were in the space given to us. It was exciting, and though we were under, as Mark puts it, “exquisite pressure”, it was fun – to give life to a shell of a room, and to use bend the space around me into the shape of the world I had envisioned, it is the second greatest joy that I have experienced in my life.

Of Time, there was tempo and kinesthetic response… but I realize now, belatedly, that I have learned far too much to record everything from this past week in one simple post, especially when I am tired as I am at the moment. Instead, I think I’ll focus for now on that one moment that brought everything together.

The Stomp and Shakahachi.

I am terribly sorry if I have killed the proper spelling of that. Another name I would give this particular exercise is, “The Moment it All Came Together” and I wish that the whole class could have experienced what only a fortunate few were able to. (Darn curfews and late bus policies.)

There is no denying that this activity of Suzuki was perhaps one of the most physically trying things I have ever attempted in my life. It would have been impossible for me had Mark not built up the qualities of an actor in me beforehand. Focus – I had to spend an unbelievable amount of focus to keep myself from giving up. Had I let my thoughts stray for a moment to how tired I was, if I had even for a second thought of the burn in my muscles, I would not have been able to persevere. Instead, I concentrated on the will, on the challenge, and focused on thinking of nothing. 

Energy – oh, if I didn’t have energy I never would have made it. I was exhausted by the end of it – in fact, the reason this post is a day late is because I practically fainted upon reaching home and slept for fourteen hours straight. Silly of me, wasn’t that?

Awareness – I had to be both physically aware and group aware to participate in this activity properly. During the stomping, it was incredibly important for me to “keep a grounded, engaged lower body” and “a loose, tension-free upper body”. I had to be aware of what my body was doing at all times. Were my stomps in time with the music? Were my knees high enough? All the while, I also had to use my peripheral focus to judge the space between the others in the group and myself. Are we evenly spaced? Should I fill in that gap? Not only did we have to avoid knocking into each other, we had to make sure we were using the whole of the stage that was the blackbox – the next thing:

Architecture. The stomping was magnificent because it was the blackbox. “Wake up the gods,” Mark said and it felt almost as if that was what was happening – the room trembled at our footfalls and echoed the beat of our movements in time to music. The architecture helped our performance, and made it extraordinary.

Tempo – oh, we made such use of tempo. After such vigorous movement in the stomping, we made a rapid transition into… extraordinary slowness. Slow motion – it was unbelievable, the feeling of peace I could feel despite the protesting of my limbs and how tired I was. Walking forward slowly, I almost forgot it was a performance and I simply lived it – I lived the moment, and became… well, I’m not sure what I was.

Something grand and with a purpose.

Something sure of itself and what it was to do.

Something focused and pure, that could make a change.

Or at least, that’s how it felt when I performed.

The other people that made all this possible?

Mrs. Moon – thank you so much for giving me this opportunity, for giving me this privilege. As I said at the beginning, there is no way I can express everything I have learned in words, no matter how I try. However, this experience has rekindled a dying passion of mine for theater as well as given me more confidence as a practitioner. Theater has taught me so much that other classes cannot. I know of no way to express this gratitude other than with violent articulation: Thank you.

And to my class – thank you for making this experience wonderful. I felt self-conscious at first, but you’re all so accepting and just so free that I could only follow suit ^^

I thank you for that as well.