Physically Theatrical

Hi Folks. I thought I'd tell y'all a bit about what I was up to last week. It's kind of hard to explain, but I'll do what I can.

It's called physical theatre, but different companies define that differently. The company that ran this program combines dance,mime, and acrobatics to create non-verbal performances with varying levels of artistic abstraction. I did a day-long workshop with them a couple years ago when they came to my church, and I got to see them perform that night and at church the next morning. It was very cool. The feats they pull off are crazy. Strength, balance, and storytelling -- maybe like Blue Man Group or Cirque du Soleil, but without all the garnish. They use almost no props, which is where the mime comes in: They have to create environments and objects out of the air.

When I think "mime," I think cheese, but it wasn't like that (whew!). It'll actually come in handy in improv, where we have to do essentially the same thing. In improv we call it "object work." Because you don't know in advance what you'll do, you can't plan sets and props, so you have to act things out and make it as clear as possible to the audience and to the other performers. You act out an activity, interact with imaginary objects, go imaginary places. Mime is great for that.

As for the dance, we covered some of the most basic of the basic ballet and modern dance building blocks. It makes me want to be a better mover. I'm too busy for it right now, but the seed is planted in my head that I could take classes for different kinds of dance and become more graceful. Not that I'm a complete clod right now. It would just be neat learn some of these things for myself, even if they don't apply directly to my performance aspirations.

One thing I liked was breaking down movement into distinct parts: Incline your head to the right. Rotate your neck to the left. Project your chest forward. Lean your waist backwards. Incline your hips to the left. You can isolate body parts and be in control of them and put together cool movements by experimenting with different combinations. Here's a fun one to try: Move your head + neck and hips to the right, but keep your chest and waist centered. Then do the same to the left. Looks wacky! Breakdancers do a lot of moves using these kinds of isolations.

Another thing we did a lot of was non-traditional partnering. Traditional partnering would be like what they do in ballet -- the girl does something pretty, and the guy lifts her up and maybe tosses her somewhere. Non-traditional partnering is actually a bit like Renaissance music. In early music, parts were rarely written for specific instruments or voices; instead, there were lines written in various high and low ranges, and you used whatever instruments and voices you had to cover those ranges. So, as a sackbut (trombone) player, I could trade parts with a singer or a bassoon or a lower viol (precessor to a cello). In non-traditional partnering, your physiology does matter, but you can have any kind of pairing; it's not gender-specific. And you learn that you can bear a lot of weight if that weight is placed on strong bones and you're not relying on pure muscle. So, if I place two feet and one hand on the ground like a tripod, a 170 lb. man could wrap himself around my waist, with most of his weight over my hips and legs, and I could hold him up. (I can't move that much weight on any of the machines at the gym.) We learned to hold each other up by leaning toward each other, by grabbing wrists and leaning away, and by leaning onto each other until one person is completely off the ground. Eventually, you can start climbing around as if you're on a jungle gym. It sounds weird and like a serious violation of personal space, but it was pretty amazing how we were all able to change mindsets and think like dancers. I often partnered with other women, but I noticed that there was a difference in my own mind between the inside and the outside of the studio most when I partnered with guys: I could do all kinds of stuff in rehearsal, and still be shy when we ate dinner later that same day.

The whole week was a long exercise in noticing, facing, and pushing through my fears, both physical and social. We did a lot of group work, and it can be easy for me to feel like the odd man out and withdraw preemptively. So I had to choose to keep getting in there. And as with most of my fears, it turns out other people felt the same way and had to fight it just like I did.

And of course, there were lots of discussions about the purpose and nature of art and theater.

It's funny: While I was there, I longed for improv because I felt more comfortable with it. Now that I'm back, I'm afraid to get back into improv! But the great thing about doing all these scary things is that, once I've done them, I've done them! I've done something I've daydreamed about and now I have an experience instead of a wish.

So tonight, it's off to experience another improv class :-).