9/24/09

Today we worked with space and tension. We played with building tension between people and visualized the rubber band between each other, and we worked with the little box on the floor (I don't remember what it's called. we had to create a beach in that little seven foot box. We tried to create the motion of the tide by walking back and forth subtly. Our plan was to be the waves while Ben sat "on the shore" and eventually we would reach him and wash over him but we never got that far, because the motion of the waves was taking too long. I was a little disconcerted that people laughed at our beach. I guess it probably would look pretty hilarious watching us tip toe back and forth together. But when they laughed at us I thought, "Aw crap, we've blown it, this must not look beach-like at all." That's kind of a thing with me, if people are laughing I've either hit it on the nose or I've royally blown it. I feel like our idea was really original, and captured the feeling of the beach, but we did take too long to figure out what to do. It's hard to think of what to do with your body. It's easier to draw on something like an animal or something but even something like the beach is hard to characterize because it has so many parts that you wonder if you should look like a beach or do what you would do at a beach or characterize the essence of the beach, and how do you do that? How do you move like something you can't see? You can't. You have to pick an action, you have to make yourself look like something you can see, and usually it comes out looking more like the way you think of the thing you're trying to imitate, not really like the thing itself, but maybe it works. It's like how candy flavors don't really taste like the thing they say they're supposed to taste like, but because they taste good and they're the right color we accept it. We suspend our disbelief and say, "Okay this is banana flavored." But in acting the audience doesn't have to walk away saying, "Okay he looked like fire" they just have to say, "this is good."