The best thing about the view points workshop is that it pulls you out of your left brain. It gives you the structure to create and then there is nothing left to do than to just do it. As a beginning actor one of the major notes I received on a regular basis was that I was in my head to much and not in my body. Viewpoints allows the performer to get in her body. I liken it to being a painter but your body is the brush and the stage is the canvas. The tempo, topography, architecture and other components are the medium for the creation.
Spatial relationship and architecture have a profound impact on me. I believe I experience the most dramatic energy shifts when I change spatial relationship and architecture. I am not even really sure why it is. I just know if I put myself close to the audience, close to other actors, or away from the audience or other actors the mood shifts. The relationships shifts . How I feel about other actors and how I feel other actors feel about me are influenced through my spatial relationship.
Architecture feels the most like child’s play and that may be why I enjoy it so much. As a young one I was told countless times “Don’t stand in the chair. Don’t play on the railing. Don’t climb that pole.” Well using the viewpoint of architecture I can do all of those things and more and it is considered art. There is a lot of power through the play of architecture. One major reason I like architecture so much is because I can affect height really dramatically through changing architecture.
3 comments:
Triza I agree with you 100%! Like you said the viewpoints really allow you to get out or your head and just do. Pieces that we were able to create in class with so little time could not have been done with out the viewpoints.
My personal favorites are like you, architecture spatial relationship and topography. I had never realized how many different ways you could use the space around you as and actor and the view points opened me up to that. I feel like one of my biggest challenges as an actor is knowing how to move on stage with purpose and not just wandering.
I wish we could have gotten around to the vocal viewpoints because i know our presentations are going to be heavy with material. i think it would have been nice fore everyone to get some different ideas about speaking the language along with creating the piece.
You, Jared, Beth and myself have been doing viewpoints all semester with Amy. I couldn't help but wonder if everyone else was able see the benefit in it. I meant to ask them about it afterward but oh well maybe when I see them again!
Tools like viewpoints is what I feel I am missing in my graduate matriculation thus far. These exercises force you out of your comfort zone and make you use your body. Viewpoints allows you to create effortlessly. The result is honest, pure sometimes edgy but in the present. It allows you to deal with the now. Participating in class that day, made me conscious of how much I need these types of exercises in my creative life to birth fresh ideas and concepts.
Spatial relationships stood out to me the most. Its amazing how constricted as actors we are to staying on the stage. Taking one foot off of it, opens the door to so many visual wonders for the artist and audience.
I would love more training in this area. I regret not taking the performance class to gain more knowledge in this area.
I have loved the viewpoints. We began working with them at the beginning of the semester and it felt like I’d done a little with them at some point in my acting career. I think what it might have been was a little of something that Triza was talking about. You did this when you were a child and the viewpoints (and much of what my theatre training) has done is broken the rules and strictures that my parents placed on me growing up. It has been a difficult road and I still don't think I'm entirely broken from that way of thinking. But I'm more likely to climb on a chair or over someone or roll across the floor now that I'm experiencing something that destroys those boundaries we've placed on our selves.
It is something that I’ve noticed all semester long in terms of the theatre we’ve been experiencing in class. Other cultures train their children differently than ours. Ours hate school by the time they are in the 6th grade. We walk around with our shoulders hunched, putting unimaginable stress on our bodies. Our bodies aren’t prepared for the physical demands of Kabuki for example. I think that the viewpoints help to release the stress in our bodies that restrict the movement that might otherwise have come naturally.
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