3D. Director/Actor: Shift with Movement, Sound and Language

• In partners. One of you is "Director," one of you is "Actor." Director, you can say one word only, and that word is "Shift."

• Actor, when you hear the word shift, you change your mind, stop doing what you're doing and do something else that is immediately relevant, yet contrasts with what you just were doing. If what you were just doing was upright, stationary and slow, your next form might be travelling and jerky, and low to the floor. This shift happens abruptly, a sud­den switch. When you hear the word, "Shift," stay inside yourself and respond to whatever you are aware of at that moment: the feeling you currently have, something you see, hear, touch, fantasize or think. Pretend you are nuts, mad, crazy, free to irrationally change your mind. Be passionate, dramatic, ordinary, extraordinary.

• Director, play with your timing. You can say, "Shift," sooner, you can say, "Shift," later. Let the person stay in their material for longer periods, and/or make them change rapidly and irregularly.

• When you have completed this exercise, have a chat with each other. Director, tell the actor how you expe­rienced her range of feeling and action. Was there contrast? Was the actor "connecting" to what she was doing?

• Repeat this exercise, changing roles.

• Change partners and repeat this sequence, but now, shift with sound and movement. Every time the actor hears her director say, "Shift," she should respond to whatever comes into her awareness at that moment. She expresses that response with sound and movement.

• Again, have a discussion and reverse roles.

• Change partners again and repeat the sequence with monologues. For now, don't concern yourself with movement, just speak. When you hear "Shift," respond to whatever comes into your awareness. Stay in your body, your source of energy and information.

• Remember, you're out of your mind.

The director in this exercise is not a care-taker. Her job is not to pull the actor out of tough situations. Instead, the director facilitates the "stretching" of the actor, even if that means the actor squirming un­comfortably. Squirming is as okay as anything else.

Unfortunately, a person can get lost in squirming. She can lose awareness, and judgment without knowing she's squirming or she judges squirming as "bad." Then, self-recrimination sets in.

Converting squirming (unin­tentional movement), from a bad, uncomfortable action into simply another action, without thoughts attached, takes practice. Awareness has to be tuned. Sensations in all parts of the mind and body need to be noted: what does squirming feel like? how does it move? breathe? what's its timing, tension? With aware­ness, there's no more squirming, just a particular condition that can't even be called anything. Unnameable yet knowable.

The student may get frustrated with a rapid firing of the "Shift" direc­tion. The opportunity to go with what's happening presents itself again and again. If frustrated or under duress, the student may finally let go, give up and relax into her wildness.

If the director allows the performer to stay with a reality for a long time, the same thing may happen. The performer may feel frustrated. Or again, under the duress of having to stick with something, the per­former may relax into the sensations, feelings, and actions of that some­thing. Again and again, opportunity presents itself. Focus, stay in the body of experience.

Listening

Say, "How are you?" Now, say, "How are you?" and listen to yourself. Can you create a score of the words with a line drawing? If a line drawn represents each word, would the melody and the timing look like this, -_ _, or this, — _ -, or this, _ _ -?

Say, "How are you?" with a different meaning. What does the line look like now?

The next time you talk on the telephone, have a pencil and paper ready. Notate the sound of the language as you receive it. Distance your­self from the content so that you can listen to the words as sounds. (The content of words often interferes with listening.) Score the language as you hear it. Each word may give a rise, or a drop, or a stutter.

Awareness comes with a quiet mind and body. Only a quiet mind lis­tens. Only a quiet mind is free from impediments such as personal agen­das, preferences, criticisms, ideas, opinions and thinking ahead. Just as a quiet mind listens, listening quiets the mind.