Introspective voice journal, cross posted from actual assignment
Inside of class:
Vancouver project was excellent.
Movement: I think learning how to dance is one of the best things I could to for myself at this current juncture. In class, when we move together, things are fine, but during the flocking exercise, when everyone is looking at me and I’m supposed to just bare my soul on beat to the music, I freeze up. I’m not prepared to adequately illustrate myself through movement, so I force something, and do what I think I’m supposed to be doing, but I’m pretty certain that everyone sees just how contrived it really is. This weekend I was supposed to look for a dance class, but I didn’t. I’m a little scared, I guess. I need to find a coach, though, so I’ll suck it up and get on it. Cathy is an amazing human being, a very warm woman, and it’s nice to have her there.
Voice: People in other faculties ask me what it is I do in class, and it is during voice class that I struggle with what to tell them. How do you tell someone that you’re learning how to breathe properly? I’m really worried I’m not doing the exercises correctly, as it seems that the rest of the class is undergoing these remarkable changes of which I only touch upon, but never fully experience. For example, when Gayle and the kind other woman whose name is escaping me at the moment - Lisa, I think? When they would go around and adjust our bodies as we would lie on these balls to align our bodies to the proper breathing position, I feel some difference, I think. I think. I’m worried maybe it’s psychosomatic, that I’m only perceiving these differences in my body because I feel like I’m supposed to be changed - they’re subtle enough that it’s hard to fully know. When we stand up, there is a definite calmness about the room, a solid, rooted nature about the space. Is that because of how we were lying on the ground? Is that because we’ve been in a semi-meditative state, lying n mats for the past fifteen minutes? I don’t know. People say it’s easier to look people in the eyes, and just “be,” but that’s something that I was taught to do since I was young, and comes as naturally to me as standing up so straight that I actually put my back in a position that hinders my vocal and mobile capacities (something I only found out I did last week in class).
I am too impatient. The instructors in this program are knowledgeable about their fields of study, and I can only benefit by listening to what it is they have to tell me. I do not know better than they do.
I like Gayle. I only wish I knew how to know I was succeeding in the exercises she gives us.
Acting: “Theatre is not therapy.” God, it was so good to hear Stephen say that. It can be therapeutic, certainly, but it is not therapy. It seems that for a long time those that would gravitate towards the field were those that were simply too fucked up to succeed anywhere else. They would use their inner demons as a form of method acting, conjuring up the time they were molested or the times their father smacked them as an emotional stimuli to get to a place that would touch the audience. You burn yourself out like that. Maybe as an outlet, theatre works for that sort of thing, but I don’t think that it will ever fix someone.
In class, we worked on something that I’m still puzzled about. One at a time, we all walked in to the room as our classmates looked on, stopped center stage, and made a visual connection with each one of our peers. We then lifted our arms, palms up, until they were perpendicular to our bodies, then said our names, lowered them, and left the room on the opposite side. We were to do this as simply and neutrally as possible, as much as ourselves as possible. We would then be critiqued by the rest of the class. When my turn came, I didn’t expect things to be as difficult as they were. With Ryan, it was easy. He had an obvious tapping in his left foot, an eccentricity which stood out. Mine were not as concrete and definable. I now realize that I have a very particular walk, but know not what to do to fix it. I can’t even remember many of the other suggestions, only because they were so hard to define! It was a way of being that was in question, not a physical eccentricity. I think that one is harder to remedy than the other.
Vancouver project was excellent.
Movement: I think learning how to dance is one of the best things I could to for myself at this current juncture. In class, when we move together, things are fine, but during the flocking exercise, when everyone is looking at me and I’m supposed to just bare my soul on beat to the music, I freeze up. I’m not prepared to adequately illustrate myself through movement, so I force something, and do what I think I’m supposed to be doing, but I’m pretty certain that everyone sees just how contrived it really is. This weekend I was supposed to look for a dance class, but I didn’t. I’m a little scared, I guess. I need to find a coach, though, so I’ll suck it up and get on it. Cathy is an amazing human being, a very warm woman, and it’s nice to have her there.
Voice: People in other faculties ask me what it is I do in class, and it is during voice class that I struggle with what to tell them. How do you tell someone that you’re learning how to breathe properly? I’m really worried I’m not doing the exercises correctly, as it seems that the rest of the class is undergoing these remarkable changes of which I only touch upon, but never fully experience. For example, when Gayle and the kind other woman whose name is escaping me at the moment - Lisa, I think? When they would go around and adjust our bodies as we would lie on these balls to align our bodies to the proper breathing position, I feel some difference, I think. I think. I’m worried maybe it’s psychosomatic, that I’m only perceiving these differences in my body because I feel like I’m supposed to be changed - they’re subtle enough that it’s hard to fully know. When we stand up, there is a definite calmness about the room, a solid, rooted nature about the space. Is that because of how we were lying on the ground? Is that because we’ve been in a semi-meditative state, lying n mats for the past fifteen minutes? I don’t know. People say it’s easier to look people in the eyes, and just “be,” but that’s something that I was taught to do since I was young, and comes as naturally to me as standing up so straight that I actually put my back in a position that hinders my vocal and mobile capacities (something I only found out I did last week in class).
I am too impatient. The instructors in this program are knowledgeable about their fields of study, and I can only benefit by listening to what it is they have to tell me. I do not know better than they do.
I like Gayle. I only wish I knew how to know I was succeeding in the exercises she gives us.
Acting: “Theatre is not therapy.” God, it was so good to hear Stephen say that. It can be therapeutic, certainly, but it is not therapy. It seems that for a long time those that would gravitate towards the field were those that were simply too fucked up to succeed anywhere else. They would use their inner demons as a form of method acting, conjuring up the time they were molested or the times their father smacked them as an emotional stimuli to get to a place that would touch the audience. You burn yourself out like that. Maybe as an outlet, theatre works for that sort of thing, but I don’t think that it will ever fix someone.
In class, we worked on something that I’m still puzzled about. One at a time, we all walked in to the room as our classmates looked on, stopped center stage, and made a visual connection with each one of our peers. We then lifted our arms, palms up, until they were perpendicular to our bodies, then said our names, lowered them, and left the room on the opposite side. We were to do this as simply and neutrally as possible, as much as ourselves as possible. We would then be critiqued by the rest of the class. When my turn came, I didn’t expect things to be as difficult as they were. With Ryan, it was easy. He had an obvious tapping in his left foot, an eccentricity which stood out. Mine were not as concrete and definable. I now realize that I have a very particular walk, but know not what to do to fix it. I can’t even remember many of the other suggestions, only because they were so hard to define! It was a way of being that was in question, not a physical eccentricity. I think that one is harder to remedy than the other.