Well, I just have to say that I'm really attracted to these viewpoint exercises. I've always been one to clam up in acting classes when we needed to do exercises involving an improv or something like that, but with breaking all the pieces down and focusing on them I feel much more confident. I feel that I now have the ability to really allow myself to shape my involvement in a scene or allow myself to confidently shape other people in a scene. I think about projects I've worked on in the past and choices I've made regarding composition and I think that maybe they were pure luck (good and bad). However, I feel, now that I am somewhat in touch with a certain type of perception, that I can move on as making something kinesthetically pleasing and enjoyable and REAL.
What I found most interesting out of these exercises was the ability to really let yourself get lost and let the control be dictated by your body and not your brain. I'm not sure if everyone felt that way but I certainly did. I felt I was able to let myself stop thinking about moving and just MOVE based on feeling and gut reaction due to whatever was going on around. This is definitely something that will help me grow (which is clearly why these steps are studied, ha) as a performer but more importantly ... as a designer. I think that is what sets me aside from everyone else in the class. I have a different filter for what we're learning. I imagine constantly how to take our lessons and shape them into light and movement through color and orientation. That sounds a bit out there, but it's definitely true.
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Actually, I totally get that last bit, Zac.
ReplyDelete(I was having the conversation with someone recently about how I went to Shakespeare in the Park last summer and spent a lot of the show staring at the lights, and how if I go to see a show with my brother we'll often spend the entire time [[bad audience members that we are]] critiquing the technical aspects and the acting.)
Although I tend to approach things from the vantage point of a director/designer, I've been focusing more in the past year or two on helping to sync up the images the actors create on stage with the accent of light, and sound, then set, costumes, props, and so forth instead of just using gobos and gels to make pretty, but what becomes basically abstract, ambiance if it won't somehow complement the way the space is being used by the actors -- spatial relations, architecture, etc.
I guess my point is that for people who don't have as much of an acting background, learning the Viewpoints of time/space, and then sound as well, are invaluable tools in achieving a feel of realism, an air of believability; then again, they are just as important in creating abstract performances (think of ways shape/line, texture, and topography can be used). And it definitely helped during the ee cummings exercise on Friday for we in the class to have a common vocabulary to work with when building those images. Without the Viewpoints for a base 'dialect' there's no telling what kind of theatrical burgoo we may have presented.
Well, that's my two cents worth of relating, any way.
I love the fact that there are people who don't usually think of themselves as performers in this class. Some of the value of Viewpoints, I think, is the way it breaks down the boundaries between actor/director/designer and allows all of us to be on a more even keel as we work.
ReplyDeleteI also think of the Viewpoints as a way of applying some of the rules for visual art and music deliberately to acting/performing. So that actors, who are often trained to think internally and psychologically, can begin to think about meaning in terms that include a larger context.
Also, did you notice in the introduction about solo performance we read that what is often called "performance art" began as a way for people who were frustrated with the limitations of their chosen media (painting, sculpture, music, etc.) to begin using the body as a material. So Viewpoints might be seen as an outgrowth of that kind of work, as well.