Stream of Observation: Flocking, The Cat, Baby Squirrels

I feel like I have an overwhelming amount of blogging to do, but I will endeavor to capture everything I experienced today and last week that I want to get down in my blog.

Like today, the baby squirrels. I think it was around 7 o'clock and I was behind the garage that makes our act II set up, so I was basically back stage, I think pre setting some props or costume pieces... and out of the corner of my eye, I see this squirrel moving with a great deal of intention and purpose sort of towards me, but than sort of not, but than towards me again, and it had something in it's mouth. That something was small and hairless, all curled up, and I realized it was a baby squirrel. I remember the moment, sort of, when I learned that squirrels transport their young in their mouths, I believe several at a time, and I was struck by the oddness of it. But of course it makes sense, they have big mouths to carry nuts and also infants. I guess by our standard of cuteness, an infant squirrel isn't that cute... but I sort of think they are, and it was fascinating seeing the squirrel out of the element I'm used to seeing it in, but also so much so in it's own element and so full of purpose, carefully but swiftly carrying it's young to safety. If I could go back and repeat the observation exercise in Yo-el's class, I know exactly what my subject would be.

Which brings me to the work we've been doing. Sad to say, I neglected to blog about my work last week, so I will endeavor to recap it. Last Thursday was difficult. I felt like my energy and focus had been consumed with opening Rosencratz and Guildenstern the night before, and subsequently I simply didn't feel as connected as I would like to have been for Yo-el's class. This difficulty was increased in that the work we were doing was concerned with groundedness, connectivity and coordination, which are not necessarily my strong suits usually, especially coordination unless I have a very specific routine worked out. Anyway, this particular class consisted primarily of Laban work (who was an early important theorist and practitioner of modern dance) who believed that movement should originate from the pelvis, the theoretical backing of which I don't really know so I won't try to explain, but I think it has to do with it being an extension of the core and the spine, etc. Many of my classmates are better at this stuff that I am (not that I'm passing judgement, many of them are simply dancers or athletes or whatever and are simply better equipped for this work) and so we went pretty quickly through the exercises also because there are 21 of us and only 90 minutes available to work. And I won't like, I started to get frustrated. It happens, of course. But when it did, I did my best to smile and laugh at my own inability to fluidly execute the forms and for a moment with one of them, I started to get it. Then I was back in my head, and class was over shortly after.

Our next class was Saturday, and focused more on some the Gratowski-esque elements we've been working on, beginning with an exercise I was familiar with in principle from my work with Tommy Derrah (and also Jeremy Geidt, and other teachers) called The Flock. The principle of the flock being that the group moves as sort of an amorphous mass or like a flock of birds, with one person at a time leading the flock ideally in such a way that an observer wouldn't know who the leader was. Initially, Yo-el called out leaders, but overtime it became organic with who was sort of at the front of the flock and who had the combination of interest, will and energy to take the lead. My approach to this exercise was to try and literally mimic the flock leader as closely as possible, so I was frequently towards the front because when it would turn I wasn't turning with the flock I was turning with the leader, usually. Probably because I naturally had that combination I talked about from having worked in this idiom previously, early on I took the lead once or twice leading the flock through the space. As we gradually warmed up, we added new movement elements, gestures, levels and so forth. After we were acclimated to that, Yo-el encouraged us to "go to the next level" which is when I, taking a gesture that was already happening took the lead and began expanding on the gesture which to me I recall as sort of an undulating wave motion which I made undulate wider and faster, and I was picking up momentum thinking maybe I was inspiring the class to a new height I looked behind me... and they were clearly perplexed, not really able to follow what the hell I was doing.

After my attempt to lead the flock failed, I took another course. My effort had been to push the group towards a new level or mode of flocking, so I sort of took a confusing tactic. Previously, it had been easy to follow who was leading by who was in front. When my effort to lead was unsuccessful, I started moving the group in a circle, until it became unclear where was the front and where was the back, until someone asserted dominance and lead the flock out of it. I didn't lead again after that, which I only realized after the fact, because I was too busy with the activity of following the flock leader and even trying to anticipate their movement...

I tried to express in the class but failed (wow I guess that's a theme today, even though I don't meant it to be), but I feel like in movement oftentimes there is a kind of subtle melodic or harmonic quality similar to music. If you hear a tense chord or note, you want it to resolve to a resolution, or if you hear a phrase if you are really paying attention to the music you can anticipate that phrase being repeated but possibly in a new form and such is often the case with movement, especially of this style and energy where everything is flowing. So I concerned myself with that, and found it very rewarding the times when I successfully predicated or anticipated a movement change based on what had come before. Or once or twice, I was able to add in a variation or motif to an existing movement without completely taking over leadership. That was cool too.

I should move off that tangent and into the rest of the work from Saturday and today, since this has turned into a post primarily concerned with my movement class. After that, we did a partnering exercise which is generally kind of stressful because I know I won't have one, but someone was gracious enough to be my partner. The exercise was inspired by Cafe Muller, a piece by the German choreographer Pina Bausch and showcased in the film Pina (which I watched recently and will need to blog about later), which in this case was one person would close their eyes and the other would lead them through the space, at first neutrally but then with the person being guided engaging in dance like movements and with multiple chairs in the space as obstacles. At first, I had a hard time giving over to my partner. I've done these kinds of exercises before, and this is often the thing for me even if I trust fully in the person, which I did, my other senses or even just my ability to sense light through closed eye lids overwhelm me with the feeling of other persons or obstacles in the space, and the fear of collision. That didn't happen though, for the most part, and it was interesting that when we moved in to the dance component, it felt much more natural and I was less anxious having the freedom to just explore and move in the space. Part of this was that my partner was a wonderfully natural and gentle guide and who was a generous collaborator as I found movement to the music being played and within the space and it's obstacles. Despite what I said above, during that moment, I felt connected and that to me is one of the most satisfying aspects of art connecting with other beings either as observers, participants or collaborators or even just with another aspect of yourself.

This sort of segues into our work today on The Cat, another Gratowski exercise the point of which is to extend and stretch your spine in a similar manner to yoga while bringing on a level of exhaustion which Gratowski believed, as I understand it, sort of stripped away your bullshit and allowed you to connect to a more truthful interior life and creativity not having the energy to judge or second guess. What I was struck by in this exercise was the way in which I felt my alignment... it was the most aligned I'd ever felt. I didn't have to force anything into place or hold anything in any particular way, it was just completely natural my spine was straight where it's supposed to be straight but also soft and curved where it should be and it felt incredible.

I'm sorry that tomorrow is our last session. I feel like I've only begun to scratch the surface of this work, but also excited at the prospect of continuing it in my own life and in other avenues. The road never ends, it just bends, and continues.

Further thoughts on Crooked Arrows

Let's see, it's been... three days since I saw Crooked Arrows, and I've been continuing to digest the experience of seeing the final product and subsequently news has come out that it banked $280,000 in 55 theaters which for a film in it's size in it's range of distribution is pretty strong, so expectations are positive that it will do well in wide release and after screening at Cannes (that's right, a movie I was in screened at MOTHERF@#%&!G CANNES OH YEAH) it's been picked up for international distribution to Europe and so forth, all of which is good news.

While I was mentally penning a note to send to the director, producers, etc congratulating them on the success of the film, I started to think about how culturally significant and remarkable it is that a film essentially oriented to such specific niche audience, the lacrosse and by extension Native American community, could be made on what is in film making terms such a modest budget (I think something like $10 million dollars total, don't quote me on that) could go on to be successful in a traditional model of distribution. What I mean to say is releasing it to movie theaters instead of just putting it out on DVD and video on demand services, which is increasingly the route many small and independent films are taking. The way that they've been able to make that work is largely through viral marketing using Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and you know, the internet.

This is process I've been aware of since I first started reading webcomics as an adolescent, which I think will go down in history as part of the really initial wave of "new media" before Youtube and all that stuff made it convenient to post movies to the internet. Back when dial up was still the norm guys like Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of the comic strip Penny Arcade or Scott Kurtz of PVP (two of my favorite webcomics, and also two of the longest lasting and most successful franchises in the webcomics world) were able to turn posting pictures they drew onto the internet for free into a very viable business model. If you're not familiar with Penny Arcade, today it's like a multi million dollar company and one of the major voices in the world of... wait for it, video games. And it was by feeding into a demand unmet by big conventional media companies (and I should also add doing it very well), which is to say video gamers, they were able to turn their creative project into a fairly big thing culturally and monetarily (at least in their specific niche) without having a big publishing deal. Love him or hate him, Tyler Perry has been able to pull off a similar thing by catering to the values of a very specific and underserved niche group, middle class African Americans, by telling stories that cater very strongly to their world view and giving them to them on a regular basis.

If I'm not mistaken, Crooked Arrows is one of the first films post Tyler Perry to take another audience, again the Lacrosse community who has money to spend on movie tickets and will probably be willing to buy DVDs as well as t-shirts, ball caps, lacrosse sticks, etc and made a product catered to that community and offered it up to them again not on the internet or on DVD but in a movie theatre and telling them about it through very specific low cost marketing strategies focusing on the internet.

I mean Jesus, do you realize how much money goes into marketing a film like The Avengers or Transformers or your typical summer block buster like say Battleship which is in the process of rapidly sinking under it's own hubris while Crooked Arrows is looking to make a profit? Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. The ten million dollar quote I made earlier for Crooked Arrows I believe includes marketing. So I think it's very exciting that a small, independent group of creatives will have the ability in the coming decades to create a product catered to a specific audience and deliver it to them. And hey, I'm a part of it! Wow, that's pretty cool.

So there's all that, and upon further contemplation of the work I did in my own role... I have such a long way to go. As an actor, it's so easy to be super hypercritical of your work, and there's some of that in my reaction to seeing myself in the movie. And the desire to go back and rerecord everything. But what's done is done, and I guess what I failed to realize is how incredibly in over my head I was doing  a role that size in a feature of that scale, having just done a bunch of parts in like web series and student films and stuff, to say nothing of the amount of voice over work that was involved of which I had no experience or training. So looking at it from that perspective, I did pretty good. But I've had to scale back my expectations about what happens next. I don't think based on this performance, Judd Apatow is going to be calling me and offering me a role in the next Superbad. But at the same time, I've demonstrated that I can pull something like this off without having ever done any of the smaller kinds of roles you usually do in film and television before it's like "BOOM you're a principal, go". Which also speaks to the kind of risk that the director and the producer took by casting me, and how grateful I have to be to them for that opportunity. Once again, the task now is pulling together a reel that shows what I can do, figuring out what that thing is going to be, and honing it and perfecting etc. And what an exciting journey that will be.