Physicality, awareness of space

Physicality, awareness of space

1.What inhibitions do you still have in using your body to express yourself? What are the strategies you can use to overcome this?

One big obstacle for me is the fact that i do not let myself loose and am at times afraid to truly explore myself.

I tend to take up roles that are rather similar and have a reluctance to express myself physically. I am always thinking about whether i would look weird doing this or that. Everytime i want to let myself free i hold back. I am not too sure whether is it fear or shyness.

But either way i have decided to read up more on Vsevolod Meyerhold's theory on 'biomechanics' and learn how to use my body to express myself. Also what i must realise is that when i am acting i am no longer 'Paveena' but the character that i am playing. When the lights are on the audience wants to see the character and not 'Paveena'. I tend to be myself on stage and not the character. This is where i need to adopt Stanislavski's approach to acting which is to feel what the character feels. Only then would i fully be able to understand what their motives are and how they would react to certain situations.

Also another very important thing i need to build up on is my self-confidence. Sometimes i feel rather inferior to my fellow tsd mates and this actually pulls me down quite a lot. I feel like i am no where near them and i tend to slip away. But as time passed i realised that i too can do it and that i just need to find that inner-self within me. I have indeed became more confident as i mingled around mroe with my fellow tsd mates.


2.Read up on the works of Rudolf Laban and Jacques Lecoq. To what extent do you think their works can help an actor to be m,ore adept in the use of space and their own physicality as an actor?

Rudolf Laban's Theory of Effort: Dance and choreography theories, with a particular focus on Laban's Theory of Effort, are another basic component of our approach: they are the basis upon which we build our analysis of expressive content in human movement and gesture. Laban's effort is a quality of movement. The effort present in a gesture and the variations it endures during a movement performance convey the expressive information carried by the sequence of gestures.

The work of Laban was aimed at understanding the factors of the movement that are perceived by the observer and that carry expressive information independently from the specific gesture performed. According to Laban, expressive power is not only a feature of the kind of gesture performed (a punch, a caress) but it is mainly related to the way of performing it.

Jacques Lecoq was a french actor, mime and acting instructor. He was most famous for his methods on physical theatre, movement and mime.Lecoq aimed at training his actors in way that encouraged them to investigate ways of performance that suited them best.Taking the movement and the gesture as a basis of work and essential settling in the actor teaching , it still proposes a learning of being an actor (and of human being) in his own right and the redefinition of a dramatic mime which concerns the rythm of the living and which precedes the words :to understand the laws organizing life, from which the stage play laws come from, from an observation of everyday life and nature. It is thanks to our body that we are aware of the world that surrounds us, miming it. From reproposing the play to the mimodynamic and to the geodramatic, the originality of this procedure lies in that discovery by the body " which mimes " deep settling of the gesture and human actions. Drawing from the great dramatic registers (Ancient tragedy, Commedia dell’arte, pantomime, melodrama…), Lecoq goes in search of what should be fondamentally played in the human being. Acting style was aimed at a closer interaction with the audience, an extended use of general space and a focus on the physical rather than the emotional side of the character to impact on the audience by way of social or political comment.

Rudolf Laban's concept of dance is somewhat an interesting way to help an actor adept in the use of space and physicality. However from experience, being a dancer myself, i would say that it is rather difficult to use his approach. Though his approach is good as it allows more movement and awareness of the body through dance it might be difficult for one who does not know how to dance. Therefore i would say that Jacques LeCoq's approach transpose the reality in a personal language is indeed easier as it involves movements and gestures, not through dance. However both approaches are good as they allow one to be more aware of the body and to able to have a greater connection with the character ther are playing and the audience.

posted by Paveena