The class I am enjoying the most this semester is FPA 339: Directing and Acting for Film. So every week I look forward to that 4 hour block on Tuesday evening.
But today was different. I had a really rough night the night before, and still haven’t quite recovered from that going into the class. I wasn’t as energetic as before and surely wasn’t excited about whatever we were going to do.
We started the class with being aware of our body parts, sorta like a warm-up. Then we did something like viewpoints, though more casually. Using the Laban vocabulary we learned last week, we experimented not only with our gesture and movements, but with our voice as well (which I found was quite a bit harder than using our body even though I am more confident in my singing abilities than my movement -dancing- ones).
My favourite Laban vocab was PRESS (hard, direct, heavy). I didn’t know why. I enjoy the imagery of having some unforseeable pressure or an invisible outside force that is motivating my body. Maybe I like it because it is familiar; it is pressures that I experience in my everyday life whether it be parent or school. It is as if I am trying to remain standing if the roof topples over and the ceiling collapses. With press came the association of push. I feel I can become stronger when someone or something is challenging my comfort zone and pushing me to my limits.
My least favourite one was GLIDE (soft, direct, light). I always get confused with the light and soft ones. I felt like they require more control. But with control I am unable to make it soft and light. Actually, personality-wise, I am just not ’soft’ or ‘light’. Thus the difficult association for me to make the movements that mean those things.
Then, before we did some improv, we had to go outside, survey our surroundings and come up with a word that described our sight, smell, sound, taste, touch, kinesthetic movement, and judgment. The discussion in partners afterwards was intriguing to say the least. It was interesting to see how other people use words differently, some more effective and impacting than others.
But the best of the evening came when we were asked to improv combining a line of text that was handed to us and a gesture that we had already picked at the beginning of class. Our partners were picked only before we went up to the playing space.
I was the 4th last to go up along with my partner, Ryan. I was instructed to be the one standing still in one spot while doing my movement and delivering my line with intention. Ryan, however, can move about the playing space freely. I started swaying my arms back and forth beside my body as if I was gliding (yes, I picked the one I dislike because I wanted to challenge myself). They were moving slowly and I made sure they alternated: if my right arm was in front, my left would be at the back, and vice versa. I waited patiently for Ryan to say his line first even though I didn’t know what it was. But I knew my line, and to say it with intention I kind of have to hear my partner’s first.
He found his place and started his gesture. “Her eyes were tightly shut, but her hands were relaxed,” Ryan delivered the line as if he was telling me a big juicy secret. What? What did you just say? I didn’t quite catch that. I took his energy and inquired, “could you tell me again… more slowly.” I was excited that he’s sharing this information with me even though I didn’t really understand what he was saying.
We maintained eye contact throughout our exchange. Then as we repeated our lines, we found (or supposed to find) different meanings, which transformed our intentions. I felt that Ryan had become more frustrated having been asked to repeat what he said so many times. But as he slowed his text or added longer pauses between words, I found myself struggling to understand his secret. To help solve the confusion, I looked to my hands and really slowed the sway of my arms. Her hands were relaxed… relaxed? How? I tried relaxing my hands and see what he was saying, but they would only start shaking because of the slowness of the sway. Still, I didn’t understand completely what his line really meant.
Suddenly he made a move closer to me; from standing beside me on my left to standing in front of me. And suddenly I feel I didn’t want to understand what he was saying. I was jealous of that ‘her’ he was referring to. I said my line again, this time softer, as if I wanted it to be me and not anyone else. “Her EYES were tightly SHUT,” Ryan looked me straight in my eyes and repeated his line. He was asking me to close my eyes. I did. At that moment I felt I was in our own world -just the two of us, totally unaware of the onlookers- and that ‘her’ was really supposed to be me. He moved in closer as I whispered, “could you tell me again… more slowly,” probably only loud enough for him to hear it. My eyes were still closed. I started to indulge in our little moment and anticipated excitedly what would happen next.
Lo and behold, Carolyn, our instructor, stopped us from going any further. (haha- well, you could say I was a little disappointed… NOT because I liked Ryan, but rather I liked how we found our little groove and discovered our transformations and different intentions each time we said our line). Apparently our scene was causing uproarious laughter from our classmates. Holly even said to me afterwards that she was telling Amanda how she had never seen me flirt:
“I was? How?”
“With your hands!”
“Oh… well that was my gesture!”
We shifted gears and were instructed to do our improv again, this time with a totally different intention that we had not yet explored. Ryan was going to hurt me with his line, and I to apologize with mine. I hesitated for a moment before starting to sway my arms again. How do you apologize with a line like mine? If he was hurting me with his line, why do I ask to hear it again? So this time, I said my line appalled, as if I couldn’t believe my ears and tried to deny what he had just said. I didn’t want it to be true. I avoided eye contact and looked away. I stuttered a bit before I could spew out my line. To deliver it as if I was apologizing was very challenging…
After having recounted the entire event in detail and had some time to think about this process, I now understand what an actor goes through whenever they make a decision for the character they’re playing. Active objectives and personal associations definitely made acting easier. Background stories are helpful, too, if there is time to explore that.
I still can’t quite wrap my head around this extremely rewarding exercise. It was fantastic and certainly made my night. My love for this class is growing exponentially out of control! (On a side note: Hey, who would’ve thought, I, of all people, had the chance to get so close and personal with the hunkiest guy in the class? — but that’s just an added advantage on top of all the things I’ve learned so far :P)
