AI: Artificial Inte..., no, Actor's Instrument
This past weekend I went to Drew, and that was awesomeness. Unfortunately I do not have the time to post on it fully. Instead, I mention it in passing to recognise the importance of the events of last weekend in my life, because most important events I post on in LJ. Thank you everyone I saw last weekend for a truly amasing time. You guys rock my socks. Thank you especially to Laura for letting me stay in her room and putting up with me and my messiness of doom.
Oh, and guess what? I got my midterm reports this week, and my journals for both Teaching Young Children and Actor's Instrument got really good feedback. My Teaching Young Children teacher called my journal "perceptive and insightful", and my Actor's Instrument teacher said my entries were "eye-opening". This makes me so happy, that someone would compliment me on my writing, something that I have always struggled with. It's easier on LJ tho, most certainly. Hoorah for livejournal! (Sorry for the bragging. I don't do it much but sometimes my proudness cannot be contained, and so I must share whatever it is I am proud about with the whole world. And by the whole world I mean the twenty something readers of my livejournal).
Oh wow, this entry requires a lot of tags. I think that's the most tags I've used in a single entry.
So yeah, that is that. And now for homework, because while I am at Bennington, homework is my life. (All Bennington classes seem to be of the soul-eating variety).
Today we did the last of the nonsense scenes. The scene involved one of the boys in the class (whose name I don't know) sitting in a chair at a desk, and one of the girls in the class named Natalie standing up next to the desk and chair. We'll call the boy John. John seemed very relaxed and as if he didn't really care about what Natalie had to say. Natalie seemed desperate and frustrated, and as if she wanted to say something very important or had something very important to find out from John. John asked Natalie what it is she wanted from him, and Natalie responded (in a frustrated tone of voice) by saying that he already knew. John then said that he didn't know and asked Natalie to tell him, and Natalie again said that he already knew, and this argument continued throughout the scene.
Kirk, our teacher, decided to mess with the scene a little and see what would happen. He told Natalie to sit in the chair at the desk, and he told John to stand where Natalie was standing, and to repeat the scene in this way. This simple change of position, without changing who spoke which lines or the lines themselves, changed so much about the scene. This time around, Natalie spoke in a calm and nonchalant manner, and John was the one acting desperate, frustrated, and nervous. Kirk didn't tell them to act differently, but their behavior did change, without the actors even attempting to change it. It just sort of happened. This reminded me of how very important physical position and movement is in theatre. For one, different positions imply different things to the audience. In this particular scene, the position at the desk implied more power. Audiences will also pay more attention to certain locations on the stage, and so more importance will be placed on actors in some locations than in others. Different positions have different affects on the actors as well, because as I was talking about a few entries ago the physical, the mental, and the emotional are all very connected. Being in different physical positions made Natalie and John feel different, and as a result they began to behave differently. I had a similar experience a few weeks ago, when we were doing the imitations. I sat as Justine does, which is very different from the way I usually sit, and I felt differently and automatically started to behave differently.
Of course there is more to acting than the physical positions you are in. There is much more especially to characters than mannerisms and the way they hold themselves. There are also backgrounds, and relationships with other people, and values and beliefs, and interests, and personality traits, etc. etc. Humans are very complex, and acting is a portrayal of human life (for even the non-human characters in plays are usually personified). This is one of the reasons why theatre fascinates me so much, because people fascinate me, and thus so do characters in plays. But anyway, putting yourself in the right physical position is a good start though, and as you do so you can keep other things in the back of your mind, such as any values or background information that might be relevant to the scene, and also what you are trying to do or get out of the other characters at that moment in time. If you do all of that, emotions will just come, and so will the appearance of personality traits. So there is no need really to act like you are feeling a certain way, or to act like you are a certain type of person. That part will just happen in the moment, and what happens in the moment can always be exaggurated if that is needed.
Physical positions and physical movement are also important because people don't just communicate with their words, but also with their bodies and facial expressions. So much of communication is nonverbal. I was reminded of that when we did the mirror exercize in class today. The mirror exercize is something that I have done many times before in acting classes and in summer camps, but before I was always just being silly and having fun, and not really thinking about what I was getting out of it or what it meant. I thought about it this time, and realized that this exercize is very much related to nonverbal communication. When I was the mirror I would watch my partner Grady as if listening to her speak, repeating her movements as if responding to whatever she had said to me. During this exercize Grady and I also had conversations with each other using our eyes. For instance, if I did a particularly silly move and Grady was the mirror, Grady would have a silly and amused expression on her face and laugh, and I would respond to this with another expression and more laughter. Or if Grady did a move that seemed difficult and that I was concerned I wouldn't be flexible enough to do, I would give her an expression as if to say "Uh-oh" or "Oh geez, I don't know if I can do that". It was really rather entertaining.
So yeah, physical stuff isn't thought about as often as the verbal (the lines), but it's equally as important, and the way someone uses their body and face is just as telling a layer of their overall charater as the words that come out of their mouth. I've learned a little about this, about understanding people from the way they use their bodies, by being a palm reader. In most of the books I've read there has been some of the book devoted to reading and interpreting hand gestures, hand positions, and other things not related to lines on the hand but to things the person controls (such as frequency of gestures). It's been a while since I've thought about or done palmistry, but I think if I got back into it it would help with things other than my palm-reading skills. Theatre, for instance, for reasons mentioned above.
Oh, and guess what? I got my midterm reports this week, and my journals for both Teaching Young Children and Actor's Instrument got really good feedback. My Teaching Young Children teacher called my journal "perceptive and insightful", and my Actor's Instrument teacher said my entries were "eye-opening". This makes me so happy, that someone would compliment me on my writing, something that I have always struggled with. It's easier on LJ tho, most certainly. Hoorah for livejournal! (Sorry for the bragging. I don't do it much but sometimes my proudness cannot be contained, and so I must share whatever it is I am proud about with the whole world. And by the whole world I mean the twenty something readers of my livejournal).
Oh wow, this entry requires a lot of tags. I think that's the most tags I've used in a single entry.
So yeah, that is that. And now for homework, because while I am at Bennington, homework is my life. (All Bennington classes seem to be of the soul-eating variety).
Today we did the last of the nonsense scenes. The scene involved one of the boys in the class (whose name I don't know) sitting in a chair at a desk, and one of the girls in the class named Natalie standing up next to the desk and chair. We'll call the boy John. John seemed very relaxed and as if he didn't really care about what Natalie had to say. Natalie seemed desperate and frustrated, and as if she wanted to say something very important or had something very important to find out from John. John asked Natalie what it is she wanted from him, and Natalie responded (in a frustrated tone of voice) by saying that he already knew. John then said that he didn't know and asked Natalie to tell him, and Natalie again said that he already knew, and this argument continued throughout the scene.
Kirk, our teacher, decided to mess with the scene a little and see what would happen. He told Natalie to sit in the chair at the desk, and he told John to stand where Natalie was standing, and to repeat the scene in this way. This simple change of position, without changing who spoke which lines or the lines themselves, changed so much about the scene. This time around, Natalie spoke in a calm and nonchalant manner, and John was the one acting desperate, frustrated, and nervous. Kirk didn't tell them to act differently, but their behavior did change, without the actors even attempting to change it. It just sort of happened. This reminded me of how very important physical position and movement is in theatre. For one, different positions imply different things to the audience. In this particular scene, the position at the desk implied more power. Audiences will also pay more attention to certain locations on the stage, and so more importance will be placed on actors in some locations than in others. Different positions have different affects on the actors as well, because as I was talking about a few entries ago the physical, the mental, and the emotional are all very connected. Being in different physical positions made Natalie and John feel different, and as a result they began to behave differently. I had a similar experience a few weeks ago, when we were doing the imitations. I sat as Justine does, which is very different from the way I usually sit, and I felt differently and automatically started to behave differently.
Of course there is more to acting than the physical positions you are in. There is much more especially to characters than mannerisms and the way they hold themselves. There are also backgrounds, and relationships with other people, and values and beliefs, and interests, and personality traits, etc. etc. Humans are very complex, and acting is a portrayal of human life (for even the non-human characters in plays are usually personified). This is one of the reasons why theatre fascinates me so much, because people fascinate me, and thus so do characters in plays. But anyway, putting yourself in the right physical position is a good start though, and as you do so you can keep other things in the back of your mind, such as any values or background information that might be relevant to the scene, and also what you are trying to do or get out of the other characters at that moment in time. If you do all of that, emotions will just come, and so will the appearance of personality traits. So there is no need really to act like you are feeling a certain way, or to act like you are a certain type of person. That part will just happen in the moment, and what happens in the moment can always be exaggurated if that is needed.
Physical positions and physical movement are also important because people don't just communicate with their words, but also with their bodies and facial expressions. So much of communication is nonverbal. I was reminded of that when we did the mirror exercize in class today. The mirror exercize is something that I have done many times before in acting classes and in summer camps, but before I was always just being silly and having fun, and not really thinking about what I was getting out of it or what it meant. I thought about it this time, and realized that this exercize is very much related to nonverbal communication. When I was the mirror I would watch my partner Grady as if listening to her speak, repeating her movements as if responding to whatever she had said to me. During this exercize Grady and I also had conversations with each other using our eyes. For instance, if I did a particularly silly move and Grady was the mirror, Grady would have a silly and amused expression on her face and laugh, and I would respond to this with another expression and more laughter. Or if Grady did a move that seemed difficult and that I was concerned I wouldn't be flexible enough to do, I would give her an expression as if to say "Uh-oh" or "Oh geez, I don't know if I can do that". It was really rather entertaining.
So yeah, physical stuff isn't thought about as often as the verbal (the lines), but it's equally as important, and the way someone uses their body and face is just as telling a layer of their overall charater as the words that come out of their mouth. I've learned a little about this, about understanding people from the way they use their bodies, by being a palm reader. In most of the books I've read there has been some of the book devoted to reading and interpreting hand gestures, hand positions, and other things not related to lines on the hand but to things the person controls (such as frequency of gestures). It's been a while since I've thought about or done palmistry, but I think if I got back into it it would help with things other than my palm-reading skills. Theatre, for instance, for reasons mentioned above.