Week Six: I am enough.

Today marks the end of the first quarter of my school program. In these six weeks, we've been going back to basics. The overwhelming theme has been -

I am enough. 

My instincts are enough, my body is enough, my voice is enough. It is up to me to give myself permission to live fully in the instrument, and life, that I have been given. 

What does this mean? The best acting is done when you leave yourself alone. When you focus on what is happening in that instant, magic happens. Thats when you see a real person on stage.  Most of the work has been done by the writer, and my job is to bring it to life. Acting is about giving and receiving, talking and listening. It sounds so simple, but it is incredibly difficult to turn off the voice in your head and just react. Focus and take in whatever you see and respond with what you feel. It's a mental muscle that a lot of us are conditioned as children and polite members of society to repress.

If you really took in everything while on a packed subway car, you'd probably kill someone! We protect ourselves by not being fully aware; however while on stage, it makes for exciting, dynamic, and  believable performances. The words, characters, set, and story may be "made up," but the actors are really living it. 

As far as body work goes, I've learned that past hurt is held in our muscles. Our movements speak volumes about how we are feeling. The goal is to be fully in our bodies. If someone is really standing in their shoes, with proper alignment and posture, you can sense their confidence. They are open. If you are compensating by leaning more on one side that the other, or collapsing your chest inward, you aren't fully utilizing all the muscles in your body. Your circulation may be off. All of this effects the energy you bring when you walk into a room. 

Vocally, we are working on really connecting to our voices. A lot of us don't speak with full resonance, maybe we hold our voices back in our throats, or don't use good breath support. We are learning to place and use our voices in a way that creates optimal resonance, because improper use could lead to vocal problems, or just not being heard clearly. I've been singing my entire life - but I've never given much thought to my speaking voice. Turns out it is a very, very similar technique. 

It is tremendously exciting when the new knowledge locks in and I feel myself freer. Instead of trying to feel an emotion, it is starting to happen naturally. I am really experiencing whatever is happening up there instead of just presenting it. This puts you in an extremely vulnerable position; you are opening up your insides and serving them up to whoever wants to watch. At the end of my scene, I keep forgetting that my classmates are there watching. You feel like you're in a bubble onstage - as my teacher says, its like falling in love. When you are falling in love you notice every little thing about the person and you are hyper aware of what you are feeling.

This week in voice class we worked on cold readings, which is when you go in for an audition and they give you a piece to perform that you've never seen before. In staying connected to my body, voice, and instincts, I got really "connected" to the piece, meaning, I felt like the words were my own, and they were coming from my personal experience. In that moment, I was that character. It was me.