So yeah. Today had kind of an awesome day for the most part. Although sleeping in happened(which was my own fault for not getting up when my alarm goes off, had kind of an amazing class today, Voice and Articulation.)
This is kind of the first real time that I'm all amped to do this class justice and sluff off. The things we are learning in there are beneficial to myself as an actor, and just in general when relating with people. We get to do warm up exercises to basically relieve our body of little tensions we always have and also build a nice "center" supported body structure while breathing and speaking and everything. Also, in a weird way, after we do the initial stretching/relaxation of various parts of our body, a lot of mental insecurities go away. There is less fidgeting, nervousness, "in the head thinking" which plagues me far too often, and sense of being grounded and aware of everything around you. It's quite amazing. You learn both the little tensions you always carry with you and how they creep up again after you are relaxed, and also how to remove them and correct habits which have been there for years without notice.
Then begin the "silly" exercises beyond that. They are silly in the sense that we have to let go of any preconception of what we should "normally" be doing when it comes to loosening up, and not worrying about if we in fact looking completely stupid humming or rolling our tongues around our mouths to get them loosened up. You just feel good and free afterward. We also started to hum and extend that hum into a an Aaaaa noise, and then project that noise first to our hand and then to across the room, aiming at a particular spot. Speaking of, I had a revelation today while zoning out in class. I do adore this class and many others, but my mind wanders quite easily, particularily to Dungeons and Dragons or magic. In this instance, I was thinking about(because we had to read in front of the class with something we had never seen before to test our voices for the teachers and also practice what we learned that day.), words and they're effect, or how to make them have effect. I was thinking about when a wizard/sorcerer/whatever casts a spell with a verbal component they don't just simply say the words to say them, they say them to the universe, to the elements around them for their spell to have effect, i.e. use the words but bring intent by giving them meaning by directing them at the world around them.
I realized that actors do this exact thing. The words are there to communicate yes, but the intention, the meaning, emotion, style, whatever you want to get across has to be there in the deepest way, otherwise it's pointless to say anything at all. If we don't have the intent to say something to someone instead of merely at them, they won't clearly understand what we tried to give them, and vice versa in the idea that when someone does the same thing to affect us, we must also be ready to receive the message they are trying to send to our thoughts, our souls.
I've done well in other classes, but I don't think I've taken away previous classes as much as I will and should have. However, I plan to make this semester, my last semester here, to go out with a bang, not a whimper. I want to challenge myself to really improve what I'm doing, because if I don't, I won't be fully prepared for what comes next: The Real World. I don't know what I can really expect, but I know I have to keep learning as much as I can while I'm here to make sure I'm as ready and able to take on anything that comes my way.
No comments:
Post a Comment