VISI, day 12

Today was overall pretty good.  It started off, after breakfast, with a session on the Alexander Technique, which was enlightening, if a bit frustrating - how do you know when you've found a good poise?  It's all about trust ... 

After the Alexander Technique session, which took an hour longer than it was meant to so I missed the poetry lecture (which I think is okay ... I mean, it would have been good, but I needed to hear the Alexander Technique stuff).  After that was a shorter lecture on how artists can engage with their communities and why we should; this was somewhat empowering, and certainly a bit challenging.  Our art is not for our sake ... 

I then scurried off to make a quick lunch, and then to an hour-long concert which, honestly, I could have skipped.  It was a lecture-concert, so it was nice to have explanations of the songs, but I didn't feel particularly engaged ... just informed.  

Then we had a workshop on world harmonies and rhythms, which was pretty cool.  We did some Afro-Cuban, some Afro-Brazilian, some Sacred Harp (where the notes are shown by shapes on the staff, and sun using modified solfege - I was skeptical at first, but it somehow made singing in parts right off the bat much easier, which has always been difficult for me ... ), and some Serbian music.  Fun to hear all the different harmonies, and to try to get all the rhythms together.  It's difficult, even as a decent musician, to get three rhythms going at once - feet, hands and voice!

The only coaching we had today was one I was really looking forward to - an acting coaching with Dean Paul Gibson, a Canadian actor.  He was not what I was expecting - very abrasive, very honest - but also extraordinarily true to his art and ... he really does care about you, I think, but he's not afraid to ask the really tough questions or to tell you flat out that you're not connecting, you're not performing, you're inside yourself.  The audience doesn't care about what you're feeling - they will only care when you draw them in, make them care, make them feel.  Two of the people in my group (one had to miss today's session) seemed very turned off by his manner, and so it was really tough for them to open up to his admittedly abrasive methods of teaching, but I thought I'd be a bit better since I really want to learn to act better, and, well, I thought I was pretty good at it already.

Ha ha ha.  we're all so deluded aren't we.

Dean didn't work on the same things with me as he did with the others.  With the others, he was driving them out of themselves, getting them to connect.  With me ... he made me see that I was Acting.  I was pushing the song to the audience, driving it into them.  I'm not afraid to meet his eyes, to battle away my discomfort and nervousness.  But he saw them, saw what I was trying to do (which was, in essence, prove that I could do this and wanted to make it better), and said, basically, that I wasn't doing it right.  Except he didn't say that.  

He almost immediately got me to sing the song (which is about lost love and seeking it again but not finding it) where I couldn't stop doing things.  He got me to pretend to sew a jacket.  Smell the jacket.  Give up on it.  Check dinner.  Check the souffle.  Check the potatoes.  Make bread.  Go to the door.  Look for him.  Is he there?  Go to the window.  Go back to the chair.  Go back to sewing.  Check the clock.  Never-ending.

It was exhausting.  It connected me more with the actual situation.  I felt like I had a connection to the song already (feeling like love isn't quite what it used to be, and wanting it back), but this was very visceral.  We talked about it for a bit, and then he told me to just sing the words.  Nothing else.  Just sing the words.

That was incredibly difficult.  I wanted to focus on the words, on singing them the way they should be sung, paying attention to the diction, to the sounds, to the colours.  But every time I tried, he said to stop, no, just sing the words.  Just the words.  So I tried.  Just thinking about the words.  What's next.  What's next.  What am I saying.  Not in any deep way - just the words.  

I felt entirely disconnected.  I felt like it was a dead performance.  Like there was nothing there.  My vocal technique worked, and that felt pretty good, but I wasn't focusing on it, so that's not a big surprise.  (It's kinda funny how well your body works when you just leave it alone.)  

And then the comments started.  Best performance of the song yet.  Words had nuances and colour.  Feelings were obvious.  I was absolutely stunned.  How on earth could that be?  It was contrary to everything I'd ever done onstage, in a performance.  I didn't feel anything.  I had no inner indication of any of those things but apparently they worked. 

I expressed as much, and he said it was because I'd already done everything.  I had nothing left to do - I was vulnerable.  At that point, what I needed most was to tell the audience just how badly this was hurting me.  It was the only thing left that I needed.  And it came through.  That whole body thing again, I guess.

So this left me in a bit of a tough spot, and I'm still there now.  That experience ran contrary to everything I've ever done, but it worked magic on the audience.  The entire experience of it was not difficult except in turning my training off.  It was less abstract and more concrete.  I felt grounded.  

But how can I know that it will work every time?  That is a very, very hard thing to trust.  Dean said that performing is not 'acting'.  It is being.  Acting is reality.  You have to be in that place.

How do you choose to be in a place?

This is very difficult.