Movement Day One

Today was the first session of my movement class with the Commonwealth Apprentices, taught by Yo-el Cassell and I'm already very excited. Immediately upon arrival and the start of the class, I was thrown in to an alien but familiar world of moving through space, trying to be present with this new group of peers as they enact an already understood ritual, reacting to Yo-el's instructions, leading with different body parts and going up or down in pace or level and freezing in place when he shook his morocca, while I just listened and observed as hard as I could. Basically, this group has been together for at least a week or two and is several sessions ahead of me (and the one other newcomer) in this course, so we were essentially playing catch up. I wasn't really able to tune into what she was experiencing, but this wasn't that much of a big deal, and was kind of a fun challenge identifying each excercise and relating it back to my past work. I was focusing as hard as I could on just being loose and present in the space and with the people around me.

The other part of my focus was on my alignment. Possibly the biggest discovery I made in this past year (come to think of it, my very first year out of an academic program, now come to a close) was Alexander Technique. If you've known me for any length of time and are an observant person, you might have realized that I slouch. I've been doing this for as long as I've been aware of my own body, probably in 2nd or 3rd grade when I was first teased for my weight. And in general I was never much of an athlete, or particularly graceful or physically coordinated. But I also remember from a young age loving to dance. From the ages of 5 to 6 (before pesky body awareness issues crept up on me) I went to a hippy dippy montesori school in Berekeley California, where my father was doing his post doc at the time... And it's never something I'd put together previously, but I imagine a lot of the creative outlets I was given access to in that environment probably took part in planting the seeds of the artist I am today. Anyway, I recently discovered Alexander technique and in the process "grew" from 6' to 6'2" by extending my neck and spine, but then recently succumb to old, bad habits. So I've reoriented my focus into a more conscious practice of Alexander both in my work as an actor and my daily life, and I was really focused on it for the initial part of the class, which I think informed the next section.

After the warm up and initial exercises, I had my first really truthful moment of the class. In the final section, Yo-el spoke briefly about an American choreographer who's name ringed a bell at the time whom I've since forgotten, talked a little about points in space in relation to dance (64?) and trying to touch as many of them as possible in the manner of a free improvised dance set to music. To start us off, he did a very elegant demonstration and we passed that energy around the room, each taking a few minutes in the middle of the circle to move how we felt, touching as many points as possible. And for me, it was a very freeing and truthful moment. Yielding myself over to one impulse to move, then letting the momentum of that movement bring me into another, and so forth. Just being free. Not even thinking about the room full of strangers in any meaningful way. Purely exploring the space. It felt natural and beautiful. And I remembered feeling that way before, as a child, and during certain performance but especially during my semester studying improvisation with Tommy Derrah, which had a clearly shared philosophical underpinning in Gratowski. I made a lot of progress working in that class, but when I really had a break through on the very last session, I hit the brick wall of my poor physical shape. Since then I've been working out a lot, so that will be less of a constraint, I think. And I'm incredibly excited to see where this experience takes me in the coming weeks.