7B. Narrative on Beat

• Everyone walk. Let's walk on the same regular beat. We're going to create a narrative together, a story with each one of us adding a segment. We're not going for a linear, rational story with a beginning, middle and end. Our narrative will unfold piece by piece, as we let our minds meander into dream world.

• You'll say a word, or a syllable, on every step and you'll speak for two or three minutes. You may repeat words, or syllables, as needed, particularly if the next word doesn't come to you in time for the next step. Feel the beat. Hear the beat. Listen to the unfolding narration. Put yourself inside it. Believe it.

• When you're ready to relinquish your turn, tap someone on the shoulder and, then, step off the floor. They pick up the very next step (or beat) with a word, or syllable, and continue the narrative. When they want to relinquish their turn, they'll tap someone. Eventually, everyone gets a turn.

• Speak loudly and clearly so you can be easily heard. Listen attentively to each other, so that if you are tapped, you'll know what you're coming into.

• The last remaining person on the floor concludes the narrative.

• I'll start us off.

Anyone who mastered hopscotch has no trouble with this exercise. Hopscotchers knew how to handle speech, movement, time and sometimes, even melody, all at the same time. The difference, here, is that the "stepper" is improvising the text. As with hopscotch, the less thought, the better.

This walking/talking exercise approaches language and the body sim­ilarly to the way sound and movement was approached on Day Two— as two aspects of a single expression. In this case, when there's speech, there's movement (stepping) and when there's movement, there's speech. A lot of balls in the air.

This lays some ground for speaking from the body. A conscious effort, again and again, of aligning speech and movement will, eventually, access an organic order.

The "beat" is incessant and the person taking up speaking and step­ping knows that some utterance must appear on every step. There's no time for planning. What comes, comes as a surprise.

7C. Narrative with Varied Timing

• Again, let's walk, with a word or syllable on every step. We'll begin by standing still. I'll start a different narration and, this time, I'll fill the language with feeling, texture. My language will vary in speed and energy depend­ing on the feelings behind the words. Even though I'm continuing to put a step to every word or syllable, the tinning and quality of the steps will con­stantly be changing.

• Everyone else walks at the same time as the speaker and with the same energy. Don't look at the speaker. Listen.

When I want to relinquish my turn, I'll tap someone on the shoulder and leave the floor. We'll progress until everyone in the group has had a turn and left the floor. Remember to pause as often as you like, for as long as you want.

Narrative

If you haven't told a story to a three-year-old, try it. This is an ideal test. If they stop listening and wonder off, more than likely, you've flattened, become dull, dry, lifeless. You've lost contact with your little listener. Children are drawn to contrast, the rise and fall of energy, change of pitch, surprise, tension, heightened drama, scary and funny things.

Because students step with the same energy as their words, they experience the dynamics of language as motion. Just as a dance may, or may not, elicit feeling, so language may, or may not, elicit feeling— depending upon its presentation.

Usually, speech is used to get an idea, or prospective, across. We focus on the content, talking towards the thought that lays ahead. In Narrative with Varied Timing, students play with each moment of speech and bring speech into present time.

Because they step with their words, students experience language as a moment-to-moment action. They make choices about each word, and every part of each word. They begin to dismantle their vocal conven­tions. They slow down to fill each moment with texture and feeling. Details get across. One sentence can carry a main idea, sub-ideas, and hints of other ideas. A sentence may carry one or more feelings that may even be contradictory.

Say these lines and play around with feeling and inflection. (Their page layout suggests different readings; the spaces between words might represent breaths, for instance.)

I want to touch you.

I want to touch you.

I want to touch you.

I want to touch you.

I want to touch you.

In performance, the content of the words is only one part of the meaning. The flesh and spirit that we bring to these words complete the picture. The combination of flesh (body), spirit (feeling) and language (content) create meaning.

The song sparrows in Union Square, in San Francisco, share the same song as the song sparrows in The Mission District, only a few miles away. However, they each adhere to a dialect that is indigenous to their region.

Our speech incorporates patterns of tone and inflection depending on where and how we live. It's not that we want to erase our idiosyn­crasies, it's that we want to know them. Idiosyncrasies suggest undis­covered expression. If we become conscious of a language quirk, the next time we experience that quirk, we can note its aspects and details. We can explore the details by amplifying, re-toning, re-timing, or contrasting. Once these details become conscious, we're no longer deafly bound.