Update: How I've Progressed So Far This Semester

Looking back at the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the semester, I think I've made big strides in what I want to accomplish. In terms of my first goal, listening actively, I have practiced a new type of listening: listening with an animal brain. This is different from human listening because, well, first of all, when we are acting our animals we don't use language. So listening becomes something different, a more sensual experience that involves not just my ears, but my eyes and my touch. If I listen with just my ears, I will miss out on a lot of listening that can be done with my eyes and my touch. So listening has become for me less of a passive action and more of an aggressive, explorative action. I say explorative because that's really what I enjoyed doing the most as the blue heron, especially in exercises like Watering Hole - exploring the room and what/who was in it. I loved walking into Studio A for Watering Hole and seeing the room arrangement and having the sudden thought that I was allowed to explore every new aspect of the room as my heron. The exploration became my listening.

Listening actively as Jackson was also different than normal listening. Although we began using English, and communicating as human beings, the physical listening of the heron did not end. When I met people, I listened to them speak, but what told me more was the way they physically approached and communicated with me, because everyone was doing such specific and varied movements. There is a lot to be learned in listening physically, and I think I am just starting to explore that as an actor and the tools it can give me in a scene.

In terms of engaging my body and being specific, I think the first is quite obvious. The animal projects were all about engaging my body and how a physical animal can create a human character. I would also say that I have gotten better at being specific, but not because of any physical change with me - it has more to do with the specificity that I am now able to pull out in what I see. Starting with observing Taylor at the beginning of the year, then the guy on the street, then the blue heron, I have had much experience in observing people and animals and their movements. When I look at them through the lens of "their movements are specific and deliberate" as opposed to the lens of "their movements are general and random," I am able to really see how they move, how they communicate physically, and then it's not difficult to imitate this. It just takes a certain eye for seeing specificity that I have developed over the course of this semester so far, and will continue to develop as my acting training moves forward.

Motion Capture Lab!

Wow!

That's pretty much all I can say after using the Motion Capture Lab today. Like, damn. I'm so happy I go to CMU and get to experience all these wonderful opportunities. As a semi-closeted geek, I have always enjoyed seeing the green-screen motion-capture work of Lord of the Rings and EA Sports games - seeing Tiger Woods in a black suit with lots of little reflective balls doing his signature swing in a film studio is quite the interesting image. However, I didn't think I would have the opportunity to have 1st-hand experience with this technology, and performance method, until much later on in my career, and so the work we did today was really special.

Because I haven't yet seen my stick-figure image of the blue heron yet, I can't really use that information to make an informed journal entry about how my movements have been matching up with how a blue heron moves in real life. However, I will discuss how watching other people's movements on screen matched up with what I have learned about animal movements thus far, and I will also talk about what can be learned from working in this type of environment.

The biggest thing I got from seeing the dots moving on screen was a really clear sense of how important Matt's undulations are in how an animal moves. When an animal is covered by skin, by muscle and fur and fat, it can be really difficult to see this undulations - it really just looks like one movement. But if you take that movement apart, study its various features, you will actually notice that the animal is using lots of different movements (sometimes contradictory!) to forward a single movement. Take a tiger walking, for example. It may just seem like the tiger is lifting his paw and moving it forward, in tune with his back paw - but in reality much more is going on. In reality, the tiger is often subtly moving side to side as he moves forward, especially when he walks slowly, and his opposite paws are being activated in movement as the "walking" paws move forward. So there is much to think about, and I think the Motion Capture lab can be a really good place to step back and look at all of this movement. When you have little balls all over your body, you can see how all of those balls are moving distinct from one another - so you can see when you're taking a step, for example, the way your static foot is moving. I use the tiger as an example because I saw the undulations particularly well with Zanny's animal. The way she moved her back showed up on the screen as this up-and-down movement that I had never really noticed before, and like I said previously, I noticed for the first time the way her paws moved as she took steps. With Jordan's llama as well, I noticed a different type of undulation going on in his shoulders - it was like his shoulders were moving forward and backward, propelling his forward motion. Perhaps he leads his animal with his shoulders? I'm not sure. What I can say is that I am excited to look at the display of my own animal and see where the hidden undulations are, because I know they exist.

In terms of how this experience was a taste of what I may get in the Business in the future, I am excited by the opportunities that computer technology provides for film. I can see this happening in most of the movies I see - special effects have become the norm for summer blockbusters, sci-fi flicks, action flicks, horror movies, vampire movies, werewolf movies, and other supernatural movies. But I have just begun to scratch the surface with where this technology is being used. Although you may not realize it, effects are used to remove camera crews from shots with mirrors, to color correct, and to put cities and skyscapes in where they don't actually exist. Matt told us to check out the effects reel of Black Swan, and I think it is a perfect example of the breadth of how this technology can be used. The video (check it out here: http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/check-out-this-black-swan-visual-effects-reel) shows a range of techniques that sometimes contribute to the weird shit happening with Natalie Portman, and sometimes not. For example, the camera crew removal is a common effect, along with simple additions of audience members in a seating house that doesn't exist and smoothing over the floor of the dance floor to look more pristine. But then, of course, there are the animated feathers growing out of her back, the mirror shots in which she appears as someone else or her reflection turns suddenly in contradiction with what Nina is doing, and the various times in which she sees someone else who has her own face. The effects reel makes it look easy, and, although I am just starting to get a knowledge of how this technology works, I think it may actually be easy in this day and age. For example, the work that Justin and Mo are doing in the Mo Cap lab is already outdated, Justin said - for Avatar, for example, they did not use little reflective balls but instead an entire reflective mask that made the process much simpler and quicker. They were also experimenting with reflective paint and glitter that could be easily spread across an actor's body. So the point of this is that the opportunities for the work that can be done, from both a director and an actor's standpoint, are almost limitless; perhaps only limited by time and money given to the production. I would like to think that in the future, as a director, I will be given the time and money to work with these effects, because they are completely changing how the entertainment business is being run. It is no longer the case that we only see special FX in big summer blockbusters like Transformers; now we are seeing accomplished intelligent directors like Darren Aronofsky utilizing, in sometimes very subtle ways, the advanced technology to their advantage in movies where the special FX don't detract, but rather enhance, the story.

Oh, and one more thing I learned: when buying a leotard, try to buy one meant for both women and men.

The Social Dance

THE SOCIAL DANCE. As the final culmination of our animal work this semester, writing this journal entry is a little daunting. I'm not sure how to start on a 90-minute improv, so please excuse me if my thoughts ramble, or are disorganized, but I will try to keep them coherent. To provide a structure, I will discuss what I discovered that worked, what I discovered that didn't work, including in these discussions other actions I took that were particularly notable and connections back to the animal character, and other miscellaneous thoughts. Here we go.

DISCOVERIES/THINGS THAT WORKED:

• Coming into the dance, I was all about me and the dance. As Jackson du Blanc, I was prepared to BLOW PEOPLE AWAY at this dance - because let's face it, that's what I do, and that's what I've been doing all my life. In preparing for the dance, what worked was for me to come into it with a specific idea of why I was there (to dance, meet people and dance with them, and win the dance competition of course!). The night before, I held a dance rehearsal for the Entertainment Committee - we prepared a dance to B.o.B.'s "I'll Be in the Sky" (a favorite from my hometown of Atlanta). I also organized Zanny to have her rehearsal for a "sexy stripper dance," but that never actually happened; I'm not entirely sure Zanny was comfortable with doing the dance, which I understood, so I didn't push her on it. I then wanted to have a dance rehearsal to get everyone comfortable with dancing, but unfortunately the energy on Thursday night was a little all over the place and only a couple people showed up, so instead we pitched our energy, like everyone else, into decorating the room for the next day. Which I think we did a very good job of, if I may say so myself.

• So standing in line for the dance, I was getting pumped for all the dancing I was about to do - exercising, warming up my muscles, talking to the people in line, etc. I was getting pretty pissed off that people like Brittany's character were going to be allowed in - weren't they too young to be let into the dance?? They are just going to ruin it! I began to meet people for the first time, and that was quite interesting - I found that it worked for me to kiss people's hands when I met them, if only because it gave other characters something to work off of from the get-go. Some of them enjoyed the hand-kiss, others (like Kyle Wilson's character) were completely flipped out.

• Coming into the dance, something I instinctively did that worked really well was NOT wanting to take off my glove for them to put a mark on it, as entry into the dance. I didn't, in fact, want to take off my gloves at all during the dance, except to pour drinks, perhaps. The gloves were part of my aura, part of my preparation, and I couldn't have them off.

• I found that, as Jackson du Blanc, I really liked being the life of the party. As I was on the Entertainment Committee, I organized people to get their dance cards filled out, and I tried to get as many people to sign my card as I could. I ended up dancing with about 12 different people on different dances, and for each one I learned something new about how Jackson related to those characters. For example, I danced with MiMi, Nicky Robles's yoga teacher character, who danced very slowly and methodically, but it was a very pleasant dance - she's a very pleasant person to dance with, although she wasn't as energetic as I was. And then I also danced with Olivia's character, who really didn't want to, but I got her onto the dance floor anyways and taught her a few moves. I enjoyed being the person who gets people moving, who gets people dancing, and people enjoyed participating in my energy. So what worked for me was being a source of energy for the rest of the party. Of course, there were those, like Taylor's characters, who simply didn't want to dance with me - but I felt that Jackson, as a non-confrontational being, would simply ignore them rather than force them into something that they ultimately didn't want.

• I was very excited for the dance competition, because dance competitions are what I do best - I put on my resume that I had won several of them. So of course I expected to win this one. I got together with three other dancers and I danced my ass off to get into the next round - but Barbara Mackenzie-Wood tapped me out! I didn't believe it at first - at first I stayed on the dance floor, and my dance partners came to my rescue, telling Barbara about how famous I was and how revered I was throughout the world. But when she told me to get off, I had to leave. I was furious. I didn't speak to anyone, I just stood at the side of the dance floor and judged the remaining dancers as harshly as I could. After Kyle's character ended up winning, I mumbled to someone that he didn't deserve it, and as his winning song was put on, I went up, took the crown off his head, and performed a solo dance. I discovered in that moment that Jackson has a bitchy side. He wants to dance, and for other people to dance with him, but he is also proud and when he does not get recognition for his talent he will force his talent on other people. I went into a very abstract dance, taking all the time in the world to showcase my abilities as I owned the dance floor. For Jackson, it felt good; but of course, he was alone.

• The last discovery I made that I want to comment on is my reaction to the armed robbery. When the guys came in with guns and told everyone to get down, I was extremely frightened. Jackson is proud, and he will fight for his respect, but he is a peaceful person and simply wants everyone to recognize the beauty of dance. So when the guns came crashing in, my animal brain kicked in immediately, and I dipped heavily into the heron for what followed. I flapped my arms as I ran/flew in no general direction around the room, finally ending up on the bleachers by the television. I stayed incredibly still, hoping the robbers wouldn't see me, moving my head just slightly to take in the entire room (similar to how I acted in parts of Watering Hole). One of them saw me, however, and told me to get down on the floor - so I hopped onto the floor and sat on my knees. At this point, however, I was over the initial shock and now I was more pissed off. As perhaps a testament to how much I had gone back into my animal, I raised my head and shoulders and screeeeeeeched very loudly at the robbers - as if I was protecting my territory. One of them heard this and pointed the gun at me, at which point I put my head back down; but the anger was still there. I wouldn't even really call it anger, though - it was like something had disrupted the status quo of the heron's brain, something had set off the heron because it had been so frightened that it just wasn't the same afterwards. When the robbers left, I found myself wanting to keep to myself and my headphones, consoling myself with my music much like I did in my Private Moment. Lawrence (Thomas Moore's character) tried to get through to me by getting me to dance with him, which I did quite half-heartedly (and still wearing my headphones). In the end, I was really happy that the robbers had come in, because I discovered much about the instinctual animal nature of Jackson du Blanc - that in moments of stress, he will appear more like a blue heron than at any other time.

DISCOVERIES/THINGS THAT DIDN'T WORK:

• Something that was really difficult for me in the Social Dance, and something Patrick Wilson pointed out afterwards, was that it was quite difficult to keep the physicality of the character the entire time. In fact, for most of the dance, I would say it wasn't even on my mind. Now, that is not to say that it should have been on my mind the entire time; I think I have done enough rehearsal with Jackson to have an innate physicality of how he is supposed to walk, dance, and relate to other people. Still, for a 90-minute improvisation, keeping his physicality was difficult. After speaking with Matt about how perhaps Jackson is the type of dancer who simply doesn't use his hands, I tried to use that to combat my problem from the Private Moment (about how the dancer is in full control of his body, but the bird is not). Still, what I really lost during the improv were the undulations, and it was not until we reverted back to our animals that I was able to regain them and remember to apply them to all of Jackson's movements.

• Eating. Eating just didn't work for Jackson. The issue is that when I eat (and because I did so much eating as the heron), I want to eat by jabbing my head at the food and using a beak that isn't there. This doesn't really work for most foods, let alone drinks. So in order to feed Jackson (which I had to do several times - dancing is a calorie-burner!), I cheated a bit; I kept the animal brain and let that guide me physically, but I did physically that which I had to do to get food and drink into my mouth. It was not a pretty sight.

• Reacting to everything that was going on around me. There was so much going on around me - every few minutes a new scuffle would start between two characters, or people would start yelling at each other, or people would be dancing inappropriately on the dance floor - and I just couldn't respond to it all. And perhaps I shouldn't have. I didn't respond to all of it in Watering Hole; in that exercise, I just chose to respond to what was happening directly around me, and it made reacting much easier. Here, though, I felt like the energy was higher because people were simply moving more. As animals, we tended to stay in one place for a while, take in what was going on around us, then move on to the next place; but as human characters, we were always on the move (except for the gorilla characters, and a few others). So I often had to pick and choose what I wanted to react to. For example, Tsilala and Taylor's characters got into a fight right next to me at one point, but I chose to simply not react to the situation. Thinking about it now, I perhaps should have - but what was I going to do? Jackson is a peaceful person, not one to step in the middle of a violent fight, and that's what security is for anyways. And I didn't feel in danger as the character. So I simply walked away and kept dancing.

Perhaps, in that way, dance became for me like a status quo for movement - my "greatest hits." As this was a social dance, I don't think that that was a terribly awful decision; but if I could do this over again, I think I would actually want to dance less, and explore what else there was to do in the room besides dancing.

So, overall, the Social Dance was quite an incredible experience for Jackson du Blanc. He met dozens of new people, had the opportunity to dance with lots of different types, and he even stepped back into his animal character in the moments of extreme stress. As an actor, what I learned from this is to go places that are uncomfortable, like dancing with Olivia's character (who was practically immobile the whole time). I learned much about Jackson's connection to his animal that I will definitely be able to use for characters in the future. And finally, I was given yet another opportunity to step outside of Brian Pettitt-Schieber and try something new with the other members of the Acting class - and, from their comments afterwards, they really enjoyed acting with Jackson. In fact, a few have told me that they miss Jackson, even though it has been less than a week since the Social Dance. Perhaps we will see him again?

Private Moment Redux

I was given the opportunity today to do something that I feel like I rarely get to do in Acting class - rework and re-perform a previous exercise. Now, the fact that I usually need to rework my exercises to bring them up to my level of satisfaction says much about my working method, and the rest of the class's working method, in Matt's opinion. He discussed recently in class about how we were "waiting" to improve, like God was going to come down out of the sky one of these days and touch us and we would become ACTORS. Well, what are we waiting for? Before we know it, we'll be seniors, and at the rate we're going will we be any better at acting? (directing for me?) It's a good note to have because it's really all about your mindset. If you say, "OK, I'm going to go this far and then stop," the only thing stopping yourself is how high you set the bar for yourself. But if you say, "OK, I'm going to go this far, and then take a rest, and then keep going," you'll simply get farther. Not only that, but if I think about it, when again in my life will my parents pay for me to go to college for 4 years to just study directing/acting? Where I have no other responsibilities except to keep myself well-fed and well-slept and study the art form? So really, if I change my mindset, I can imagine myself really developing over the course of these 4 years and, perhaps as a goal to set for myself, creating work I'm really proud of and can show people after I have graduated.

Anyways, pep talk over. Before I get into how I developed my Private Moment, I want to discuss another exercise that really has helped me solidify Jackson's character - making my resume. The making of the resume was really a fun thing, because Jackson's history was completely up to me - I could make him into whatever I wanted him to be. So I ran with the idea of this obsessed dance artist, and I used something important I discovered in the General Hospital improv last week - Jackson du Blanc is French. The French accent gave me something to work with that immediately took me away from Brian Pettitt-Schieber - I was surprised at how easily it was to be somebody completely different just by having an accent! I suppose this is why they say language is everything. So I worked with the idea that Jackson was raised in France, worked on the streets of Barcelona in Las Ramblas for a while, went to a French dance academy, and moved to New York to continue to craft his form. While he was in New York, he interned at the Alvin Ailey school where an agent saw him and got him work with The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, after which he made it big and performed at (!) Super Bowl XLV as will.i.am's understudy. Kind of ridiculous, I know, but that's how talented Jackson du Blanc is.

Even better preparation for the Private Moment (although I had to wait to do my Private Moment until Monday) was when I used this resume for the job interview. Matt asked me a few questions about my training and why I moved to the United States (because New York City is at the forefront of contemporary dance, obviously) and what I would do if I couldn't dance (probably use my minor in gender studies to examine the roles of men and women in society - but I would still dance on the side). More than anything, practicing conversation in my French accent with another person was perhaps one of the best outcomes from the interview.

I also had to practice my movements for the Private Moment Redux, however, and I used these as I walked to and from the job interview. I keep my walk with my shoulders and head held high, like the heron, but I give my head freedom of movement to bobble around as I go. The undulations move through my legs as I walk - I try to lift my thigh first, then roll the energy down my leg as I poke my foot forward. So I end up lifting my thigh vertically and moving my feet forward horizontally. The undulation also moves subtly through my upper body, although it stays generally straight. I try to only let my arms move from side to side, like I'm flapping my wings, but this is difficult to keep. I run against this problem: as a dancer, Jackson should be in full control of all of his body parts; but as a heron, he really shouldn't be using his hands, and he shouldn't be moving his arms around in front of his body. So I have to compromise between my idea of who Jackson is and the animal brain I am using while controlling his body.

After practicing the job interview, with my accent and walk, I then had a weekend to improve my Private Moment to show again. I decided to change the song, first of all - no more dubstep! I instead used a song called "Ca m'enerve" ("He annoys me") by Helmut Fritz. An upbeat French song. I then decided that, instead of having a loose idea of what I was going to do like I did for the Private Moment, I would write it out and create a story arc out of it - give the audience something to root for and give me some stakes to play with. So, running with the idea that "dance is my soul," I started with my morning routine - gelling up my hair, buttoning my shirt and popping my collar, and putting on my shoes and my headphones. I've gotta look fresh. Then, I stepped onto my yoga mats and did my morning routine - head rolls, arm (wing) flaps, with undulations all up and down my arms, and leg-balancing exercises - the same exercises I would do to improve my balance for the heron! I really tried to keep as much "heron" as I could in all my movements. Then, I exited my house and displayed my moves on the street. This time, instead of tripping and falling on my own accord (something, in retrospect, the trained artiste Jackson would never do), I instead tripped on a banana peel someone had carelessly tossed onto the ground - how rude! And what was even worse, I hurt my ankle! Using this banana peel gave me something to play against as I looked around to see who had thrown it - but I could not see who it was. So, dejected and physically hurt, I put my music back on to console myself (Jack Johnson's "Belle," another song with French lyrics) and walked back inside.

This showing of my Private Moment was well-received and I think it showed a closer connection to my animal. I focused less on what was happening in the moment and focused more on how Jackson, with the heron brain, would react to what was happening. I went through a more detailed journey, and I showed the range of Jackson's emotions more. By this point, I would like to think that I have a good sense of who Jackson is - but I'm always open to discovering new things.

Private Moment (Jackson Gets Down)

I performed my Private Moment for Jackson today, and I think I made some key discoveries that will help me as I continue to develop this character. In thinking of what to do for the Private Moment, I was really trying to pull some characteristics I had found with the blue heron that worked well. The key, I have found, to performing the blue heron is to imbue the heron with some kind of human characteristic. Matt is always talking about animals with human characteristics, and that helps me understand (get inside the mind of) them, because then I can judge how they will react to certain situations. (And if there is anything to be learned about acting from animals, it is how to react with complete and utter honesty. For example, an experienced CMU actor will not react in the slightest if the walls in the studio next to him start to shake, as often happens in our acting class - but how would a bird react if the walls started to shake? A bird, due to its lack of awareness of what's really happening, would perk up, recognizing a threat, and take every sound and movement into its awareness).

So, the upshot of this method of looking at the blue heron is that I took a key characteristic that I found in it and translated that to my Private Moment. I chose the word "proud," because, based on the costume I picked and the way I worked my character before the Private Moment, this seemed to me to be something I could hold on to. My blue heron, as all blue herons are, was king of his ecosystem. He will eat anything without prejudice, and he does a very good job of not getting eaten. With his incredibly large wingspan, he can soar off to different places with grace and ease, and finding food for him is never a problem. As I explored this in the exercises done after I picked my costuming (a blue polka-dot shirt, tight black corduroys, and flashy LaCoste white shoes), I found that this new human character wanted to be graceful, at ease in his situations, but he did not like being offended and had a very high sense of who he was. In translating this to a Private Moment, I decided to try dancing, because that is perhaps the perfect example of a being using their body with grace and ease while being proud at the same time. What really called to me for this moment was using dubstep - when I listened to it with my animal brain, I found that it had Jackson had a peculiar attraction to it.

So, for my Private Moment, I decided to go for it - to just throw it all in the wind and make a strong choice. Using the word "proud" as my guideline, I decided that, to Jackson, it didn't matter what people thought about his dancing, which freed me to dance however I wanted (a good thing considering my lack of dance training!) My choice was to have Jackson get ready in his house, prepare himself to look good, then go out into the street and start dancing to dubstep. The conflict of the moment occurred when Jackson accidentally tripped and fell - he was surprised that he had fallen, and it shook him up, but he is the kind of person that will get back up again and continue dancing, and that is what he did.

This moment worked for Jackson as a starting point, and comments from Matt afterward really helped me develop the character. Matt suggested that I really investigate Jackson's relationship to his dance - that perhaps "dance is a connection to his soul," and so when he falls, the fall is more severe - the stakes are higher. Instead of simply being embarrassed that he fell, perhaps he must stop the dance because his connection to the dance has now been severed. These ideas were quite interesting and will give me some things to consider as I rehash my Private Moment. What I would like to develop for the next showing of the Private Moment is 2 things: a better definition of who Jackson is, and a stronger story within the moment itself. At the moment, there is not much of a story because the stakes aren't very high, and I haven't found a strong ending - but by finding the conflict, the obstacles, the reversals in the action, and deciding on a strong ending, I will have something stronger to show the class.

A Number

I wanted to jot down a couple thoughts I had on the acting in A Number, because, as both a director and an actor, I am trying to develop my skills at seeing what good acting looks like, and what challenges me or affects me the most.

• The first thing I want to talk about is Denver's performances. I say performances because I really liked the variety in Denver's characters - for each scene I could tell that he had really worked on creating the specifics of different characters. In the first scene, as Alex's son he had raised, he went through a specific journey of finding out he was one of 20 clones - and through that journey I saw a specific character portrayed. Then, in the 2nd scene, and then again in the 4th scene, I saw a very definite other character - angrier, with more passion, and with a bone to pick with his father. What is quite interesting and quite relevant to the work I'm doing now is what Denver talked about during Conservatory Hour - that he actually used a dog as his "animal" for the clone of the second scene. This was quite interesting because I could tell, especially by the way he handled his chair, that he had this 'dog' attitude about him. And then, of course, his third character, which in his dim-wittedness was quite funny and provided a cute, although not incredible, ending to the show. So it was a good example of two things: how to differentiate 3 characters played by 1 person in the same show and how to use an animal in a performance. Bravo, Denver! Thank you for keeping me engaged.

• Alex's performance as the father of the clones was the more difficult role, and made me realize something important about acting. I think Alex did a very good job, and he played it his best. Although sometimes I was looking for a little more variety in his character, he was responding well to what Denver was giving him. The issue was, I think (and this was confirmed to me by Jed Harris and Matt) that it is not really possible for a CMU School of Drama student, a 22-year old, to play such an old role - and I think especially a father's role - without having enough life experience behind him. Jed was telling me that "in ten years, he'll be itching to get his hands back on this role to give it another shot," and I think that that is an important thing to think about when casting, or deciding which show to do. How well can even the best CMU actor perform an old man's role? I saw the same problem in The Wind Farmer - I really just wanted the actor to be older, to act older, to move slower and with more weight into the floor, instead of young and sprightly. I even left the show thinking, "Is it possible for a man to play a father's role like this without having had kids, or without having done extensive research into what it's like to lose a kid?" I'm not yet sure. Matt thinks it's possible, but I'll have to see - I just haven't seen it done yet.

Michael Chekhov Exercise - thoughts

Every so often in Acting class, you do an exercise that just kind of blows your mind - tears it apart and forces you to rethink the old judgements and barriers you had to what was possible. I'm happy to say that the exercise today was one of those days. We did a Michael Chekhov exercise in which we explored 4 movements: Molding, Floating, Flying, and Radiating. I want to discuss two things - 1st, how exploring Flying changed how I will relate to performing the blue heron in the future; and 2nd, how exploring Radiating actually brought me to tears, and what that teaches me about the power of the human imagination. (Side note: Molding and Floating were both interesting, but I did not experience them as deeply as I experienced Flying and Radiating. I was sitting back in my judgement corner for a lot of Molding, and it was honestly difficult for me to imagine what Floating upwards through water would feel like. But I was working very hard through both of them and it payed off for the last two).

So, Flying! That was such an incredible experience. We floated up through the air until we were up on top of a tree branch, and then we were invited to fly to another branch in the room - and all of a sudden I realized the mistake I had been making with the heron for so long. Every time I imagined the heron flying, I imagined him starting at the ground and flying up to something - so every time he had to flap his wings to get up into the air. Here, though, we were already in the air, and when we were flying Matt told us to imagine we were lighter than air - and all of a sudden I had a breakthrough from my old way of heron flying. Instead of flapping my wings, I simply spread them out, and the wind took over and glided me to the next branch. Instead of flying, now I was soaring! The key difference was that before, I had never imagined the heron to be lighter than air, perhaps because my legs were always connected to the ground and that distracted me. In any case, and after watching more heron videos, I have found that the heron, with its giant wings, actually doesn't have to flap its wings very much - it can just gracefully soar from branch to branch. Discovering this was an epiphany, and something I will bring into my work in the future - not just with the heron, but with any character that needs to have the appearance of being lighter than air.

The part of the exercise that moved me, and made it a game-changing exercise in the end, was the Radiating part - the end. We stood on a small silver platform and were raised up, up, up, through the clouds, through the atmosphere, out to the edge of space. What really got me into the exercise was that I took my time with it - I closed my eyes and imagined seeing the ground from tree level, then from cloud level, then from atmosphere level, until I could see the curvature of the Earth. We were then told that the energy from the sun, our life source, was actually mimicked by a small sun within all of us that was radiating outwards, heating up the Earth with our hearts. I don't remember exactly when I started to cry, but I know it was at the point when I realized, without a doubt, that I was completely and utterly alone - completely cut off from the rest of the human race. Writing about it now, it seems a little ridiculous; I mean obviously I wasn't, right? I was still in Studio A. But my imagination took me to a place I had never been before, and I swear I experienced what it was like to be in outer space. And I honestly don't know how astronauts do it. It was just about the worst feeling I've ever had. I suppose because they go up with other people, it's not as bad, but that feeling of loneliness is fucking brutal. It was slightly relieved when Matt told us to start accepting the radiation from the other members of the class in space with us, to both radiate and accept radiation at the same time, but I think that relief was quickly replaced by more angst when Matt told us to direct our radiation at a place somewhere on Earth that was important to us. I, of course, directed it straight at my wonderful home in Stone Mountain, GA, and I imagined my mother cleaning the kitchen inside and my father sitting at his computer, and at this point I was bawling, but I kept radiating. And radiating. And accepting radiation. It was a new feeling, but something I need to keep using in the future in my characters, because I rarely stop to think about the energy I am giving to my partner - just what I am receiving. And I need to be experiencing and understanding both in order to be an effective actor.

Anyways, after I stopped crying and came back down to Earth and debriefed with my fellow actors, I realized my imagination can really take me places I've never been before. It really is a transformation in sensuality - how specific and authentic can you make your environment, your where? How does this outer environment affect the inner self (because it always does)? As Matt said, the exercise doesn't work on you emotionally - it works on you sensually. The emotions are just a byproduct of the specificity of your where and the strength of your imagination.

Besides a revelation in how strong I can make my "where," I also have 4 new tools in my toolbox: Molding, Floating, Flying, and Radiating. As the blue heron, I will definitely work with Flying, but I am also going to try experiment with Radiating and Molding too - like how could Molding be used when I stand up or sit down? Like Matt said, "Flying into Molding is a clearer beat change than 'OMG my life is changing!'" So these 4 techniques will be new ways to approach a character, an action, a beat change, and give me a new perspective on what I am doing as an animal/character.