The following is an excerpt from a paper for one of my courses, detailing the essence of my progress this first semester. It is applied specifically to the art of acting, so you actors out there may find it especially interesting, but the heart of it is pretty good stuff thats useful in almost anything if you are interested, and frankly I can understand if you didn't want to read some boring paper I wrote for class...
We were told that the first semester of graduate school was going to be rough, but I don’t think I really understood what that meant. After all, the obvious problems of adjusting to a new and rigorous schedule, meeting high expectations, multi-tasking various assignments for several different classes, and still finding time to stop and breathe every now and then were daunting, yet hardly something I had not encountered before in my scholastic life. But what I did not understand was how challenging the first semester was going to be mentally, because basically what I found myself experiencing was a complete paradigm change, a total revaluation of myself and the very art of acting.
I came, as did we all, with a lot of preconceived notions about what “good acting” meant, and what we needed to learn to do it. I think perhaps the biggest step forward I’ve experienced in this first semester is simply beginning to be aware of what the aesthetic of acting taught here is, and how to describe it, and how it differs from my previous expectations. What is the difference between polished theatrical technique, and true artistic authenticity, and how do they work together? What does it mean for the whole organism to be involved in the art, rather than just the logic-minded part of the brain? When I came to learn to be a good actor, I did not expect that I would have to spend a great deal of time simply relearning what good acting means, but this has been truly and lastingly beneficial. I will continue to clarify my ideas of the art of acting throughout my study here and throughout my life. The first semester consisted mainly of gaining an awareness of where I’m actually going and taking my first few tentative steps in that direction.
This course in specific gave me a great awareness of my own instrument, my body. Another great lesson I’ve learned in the course of the semester is the absolute miracle and wonder that is the human body. As we worked on body mapping and refining my image of my self and how I am put together, I began to see myself in a whole new light. I began to feel that, with a correct mental map of the body, I was in more control of myself and had more power and potential. One amusing example of this was when I went dancing and, with a suddenly more exact idea of how my hips and pelvis are connected to the rest of my body, I was able to “shake my groove thing” (to use the colloquial phrase) with more agility and prowess than ever before. This may be an irrelevant example, but I think it illustrates that with a greater understanding of the inner workings of the body, there is more potential and control that the actor can bring to the art. Also, by connecting the mental image of the body to the physical reality, we are beginning to break apart the artificial divide between mind and body, spirit and substance, which has been another theme of the semester.
Impulse work has proven very useful in beginning to get to the heart of the new aesthetic of acting that I have accepted as my professional goal. If one is ever to tune out the constant and ever-present self-critical voice that prevents true living in the moment (an old teacher of mine called this voice the “yabba-yabba,” and I’ve adopted that name), then I think it is necessary to learn to be more sensitive to the actual impulses of the body, the authenticity of the organism at any given moment. Ideally, this awareness of the self can grow so strong and focused that it replaces the yabba-yabba entirely. I found that in working with genuine impulses, it always took me a while in the exercise to get past my conscious anxieties and truly give over to the impulses. It became easier and easier to do so as we continued to work, and so it seems to me that a true awareness of the desires and impulses of the self without self-judgment or critique (which sounds so Zen, and really it is) is similar to kineaesthetic awareness of the movement of the body without tension in that it must be cultivated and developed and habitualized, but with practice it can become second nature. That, at least, is my goal.
All of the courses we took this semester seemed to possess a unifying theme that has been life-altering and inspiring for me, and that is that I (the whole organism of mind, body, and soul that makes me up) am more capable than I give myself credit for. I begin to think that I am not good enough or lacking some way that I need to fix through effort, strain, and tension both physical and psychological. What we have discovered this semester is that, ironically, when we add that extra strain we prevent ourselves from being as effective and amazing as we could. And then when we strip away that excess effort, that push, we not only become more strong and stable, as we’ve seen in Suzuki class, we become (forgive me is this is too abstract) more authentic, more powerful, more alive, and more human. Audiences are intelligent enough to recognize extra strain and effort and they immediately recognize it as false. It is those actors who can simply be, without extra stress, who trust in their whole organism to be good enough, that pull us in and move us to tears. Uncovering the right path to achieve that artistic state of pure authenticity, supported but not overwhelmed by rigorously practiced and polished technique, is now the primary goal of my study in the program.
We were told that the first semester of graduate school was going to be rough, but I don’t think I really understood what that meant. After all, the obvious problems of adjusting to a new and rigorous schedule, meeting high expectations, multi-tasking various assignments for several different classes, and still finding time to stop and breathe every now and then were daunting, yet hardly something I had not encountered before in my scholastic life. But what I did not understand was how challenging the first semester was going to be mentally, because basically what I found myself experiencing was a complete paradigm change, a total revaluation of myself and the very art of acting.
I came, as did we all, with a lot of preconceived notions about what “good acting” meant, and what we needed to learn to do it. I think perhaps the biggest step forward I’ve experienced in this first semester is simply beginning to be aware of what the aesthetic of acting taught here is, and how to describe it, and how it differs from my previous expectations. What is the difference between polished theatrical technique, and true artistic authenticity, and how do they work together? What does it mean for the whole organism to be involved in the art, rather than just the logic-minded part of the brain? When I came to learn to be a good actor, I did not expect that I would have to spend a great deal of time simply relearning what good acting means, but this has been truly and lastingly beneficial. I will continue to clarify my ideas of the art of acting throughout my study here and throughout my life. The first semester consisted mainly of gaining an awareness of where I’m actually going and taking my first few tentative steps in that direction.
This course in specific gave me a great awareness of my own instrument, my body. Another great lesson I’ve learned in the course of the semester is the absolute miracle and wonder that is the human body. As we worked on body mapping and refining my image of my self and how I am put together, I began to see myself in a whole new light. I began to feel that, with a correct mental map of the body, I was in more control of myself and had more power and potential. One amusing example of this was when I went dancing and, with a suddenly more exact idea of how my hips and pelvis are connected to the rest of my body, I was able to “shake my groove thing” (to use the colloquial phrase) with more agility and prowess than ever before. This may be an irrelevant example, but I think it illustrates that with a greater understanding of the inner workings of the body, there is more potential and control that the actor can bring to the art. Also, by connecting the mental image of the body to the physical reality, we are beginning to break apart the artificial divide between mind and body, spirit and substance, which has been another theme of the semester.
Impulse work has proven very useful in beginning to get to the heart of the new aesthetic of acting that I have accepted as my professional goal. If one is ever to tune out the constant and ever-present self-critical voice that prevents true living in the moment (an old teacher of mine called this voice the “yabba-yabba,” and I’ve adopted that name), then I think it is necessary to learn to be more sensitive to the actual impulses of the body, the authenticity of the organism at any given moment. Ideally, this awareness of the self can grow so strong and focused that it replaces the yabba-yabba entirely. I found that in working with genuine impulses, it always took me a while in the exercise to get past my conscious anxieties and truly give over to the impulses. It became easier and easier to do so as we continued to work, and so it seems to me that a true awareness of the desires and impulses of the self without self-judgment or critique (which sounds so Zen, and really it is) is similar to kineaesthetic awareness of the movement of the body without tension in that it must be cultivated and developed and habitualized, but with practice it can become second nature. That, at least, is my goal.
All of the courses we took this semester seemed to possess a unifying theme that has been life-altering and inspiring for me, and that is that I (the whole organism of mind, body, and soul that makes me up) am more capable than I give myself credit for. I begin to think that I am not good enough or lacking some way that I need to fix through effort, strain, and tension both physical and psychological. What we have discovered this semester is that, ironically, when we add that extra strain we prevent ourselves from being as effective and amazing as we could. And then when we strip away that excess effort, that push, we not only become more strong and stable, as we’ve seen in Suzuki class, we become (forgive me is this is too abstract) more authentic, more powerful, more alive, and more human. Audiences are intelligent enough to recognize extra strain and effort and they immediately recognize it as false. It is those actors who can simply be, without extra stress, who trust in their whole organism to be good enough, that pull us in and move us to tears. Uncovering the right path to achieve that artistic state of pure authenticity, supported but not overwhelmed by rigorously practiced and polished technique, is now the primary goal of my study in the program.
Comments
Interestingly enough, what you just said, about getting rid of extra effort and such, is also taught in Martial Arts. It doesn't surprise me that it applies to acting; we were told that it applies to life in general, which now seems very true (more so than before)...