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.