7D. Language and Movement/Interruption

• In trios, you and your partners build a physical narrative, putting movement and text together. You're free to do any movement that you feel is appropriate to what you're saying. You're no longer limited to stepping.

• Begin from neutral stillness. One of you starts by moving and talking at the same time. Whenever you're active, you're active with language and movement. They're done as one action: the movement and the language are precisely concordant in time, duration, feeling and dynamic. When you're not talking, you're not moving, and vice-versa. Imagine that your body is doing the talking and your talking is doing the body. A loop of inspiration.

• You can fill the spaces with movement and speech, or pause. You can repeat yourself, play with a word or an idea. You can repeat your partner'sactions and language, or add on from where they left off. Don't feel that you have to jam a lot of information into a small space. There's nowhere to go except where you are. Make the most of it and be the most of it.

• The space is yours until you get interrupted by one of your partners. When you're interrupted, stop immediately, even if it's in the middle of an action. Don't return to neutral, but stay where you are, whatever position and shape. Don't blank out. Stay aware of your partners.

• Partners, listen to each other. What you hear affects what you say and how you say it. Play off each other's timing. Orchestrate, hear the beats. Be aware of each other's physical shaping and shape in response to that awareness.

• Keep your interruptions erratic. Who interrupts, when they do so, and the duration between interruptions is unpredictable.

This exercise is a more evolved version of Verbs Only introduced in Day Five. Again, students put movement and language together, continuing the practice of integrating body/mind awareness. Here the students are not limited by saying what they're doing. They are free to build text from their imagination. Their physical actions reflect their relationship to that text.

What kind of movement is relevant to language? There are three choices.

MIMETIC

The simplest and most direct is mimetic movement, movement that lit­erally interprets the text. The speaker says, "Tree," and forms a tree with her body.

SUBTEXTUAL

Another choice reflects what we call subtext: information of emotion, or feeling, that concurrently lies unspoken beneath the spoken. The speaker says, "Tree," while sensually stroking herself, signifying some personal reality relative to "tree."

ASSOCIATIVE

Another choice is associative movement that reflects a different idea, or image. Here, the speaker says, "Tree," while simultaneously tearing paper. Associative actions may stray far from the content of the actual text. Whether the movements are sub-textual, or associative, what remains important is that the mover experiences coherency. Their verbal and physical images stick together.

The last two choices offer a broader scope of information from which to make meaning. Since the verbal and the physical images don't directly reinforce each other, the audience experiences a wholeness that is beyond the sum of the parts.

Blocked/Stuck/Empty

What do you say when you don't know what to say?

Again, there are some choices. One is to come to terms with your speechlessness and speak about it. For example:

"I would say something if I knew what to say." "I have nothing to say about..."

"I'm afraid if I say something it might be wrong ... and you will think ... and then I will have to" "I need some silence to think." "Wait, Ym thinking." "I'm hot, in a panic and can't talk." "I'm not moving—speaking—frozen—paralyzed ..." And on and on.

Obviously, if you get yourself to the point of talking about not talk­ing, you're talking. You've slipped out of speechlessness and into speech. But, it's not always that easy. Consciousness must be brought into the experience of speechlessness, and for some people that, in itself, is an arduous task. Sometimes, just experiencing an unconscious freeze, over and over again, leads to conscious recognition. Side-coaching from a teacher, or an observing partner often helps: "Where are you right now?" A question from the outside may jar the student, and wake him up to his state. Once recognition occurs, the change has begun. The experi­ence can be observed. Objectivity and detachment can come into play. An observed experience is diffused of the power to strangle and gag. The observer has taken charge. He can interact with the condition of speechlessness and mine it for riches.

Another choice is to copy what one of your partners says. If you can't think of anything to say, then don't think, simply say exactly what another person is saying—maybe even try to do it at the same time. "Empty Vessel" them, so to speak. This approach often activates an energy flow and the previously stuck speaker can take off.

An even more sophisticated approach would be to build a metaphoric, or fantastic, narrative using present feelings as a base. For example:

Sabine is feeling confused. She isn't clear what her partners are talking about and doesn't know how to fit in. Sabine notices this experience. She talks about an orphan who comes upon a strange village. The orphan doesn't know how to fit in. The orphan's con­fused, can't get clear what people are talking about. She goes from person to person trying to find shelter. The story builds from there and Sabine's home free.

We're not making theater about robots who always have the perfect things to say, the perfect gestures to make and are perfect. We're mak­ing theater about people who have all kinds of experiences: some flow; some are light, humorous, deep, profound; some are about confusion, stuck-ness, stupidity, fear, anger and other perfect imperfections. This is theater of people.