8D. Transform Content, Sound and Movement

• Everyone, change partners. We'll repeat the previous exercise. This time, we'll work with a sound and movement gesture. The transformation will occur within the conjunction of the sound, movement and intention of the action. Just as the bones of the movement remain constant, so do the bones of the sound, (the bones being the shaping of the sound in the mouth). For example, if the sound is a "ba" sound, it doesn't transform into a "fa" sound. It stays a "ba" sound, but the tension, volume and speed of that "ba" sound transforms just as the quality of the movement transforms.

8E. Transform Content, Phrase and Gesture

• Change partners and we'll repeat the previous exercise. However, this time each of you will assign a combined phrase and gesture to the other. As you transform the action, have the phrase and gesture ride simultaneously just as a sound and movement would. If there's no movement, then there's no sound, and if there's no sound, there's no movement. Again language, movement and intention transform simultaneously.

To perform this exercise, students must, as in earlier language exercises, detach, in part, from the meaning of the language. They must "hear" its sound and "feel" the kinetics, as well as know the meaning. Then, as they transform the phrase and gesture, they're free to stretch the articulation of their speech beyond what they normally would.

8F. Performance Score: One-Upping

• Two people go and stand out on the floor. Two people from the audience go out and each assign one of the performers a gesture and verbal phrase, in secret. Be sure that gesture and the language are synchronized in detail. Once you've made your assignment, come back and join the audience.

• The two performers, face off with a few feet between you, standing in neutral. Using only the material you've been given, and by alternating turns, you will collaborate on a transformation. One of you performs your action (phrase and gesture). The other immediately performs their action in response. Back and forth, no time in between. Each time it's your turn, repeat your action, but fill it with the energy, tension and intention of your partner, and go a little further. Each time pick up your partner's cues: details; articulation of energy; expression of the face, eyes; music, inflection and tone of the voice; timing and spirit. Use the same accents and rhythm even though your phrases are different. "Get out of my house!" will sound and feel the same as "Have you seen my comb?"

• Pay close attention to each other. You're both riding an endless current of energy. Responding and driving, responding and driving.

• If needed, I will side-coach you. If I find that you're either jumping ahead (by asserting something that was not indicated in your partner's action), repeating, or not listening and observing, I'll either throw in a comment to put you back on track, or stop you. Be in your ears, eyes, and body. Follow each other's sounds, energy, and spirit. Relax and get in a groove together.

Students can always advance further into a territoiy than they think they can. They tend, unguided, to veer off into another direction before they challenge their capacity to hold, extend, and continue the progression into the current direction. It's not that students are unwilling. Until they're familiar with the experience of letting go into the unfamiliar, they often miss the jump off place. They're too busy doing the exercise, listening, and observing and doing, doing, doing. An encouraging voice from the outside (side-coaching) can help. "Further. Go further into that. What do you notice? Go with that. Even further. Focus. Go further. Further."

"Further" doesn't necessarily mean bigger and louder. The task is to follow the details as they lead into any body/mind state.

• In One-Upping, each partner incited the other. One may have driven into an area that the other might normally avoid because it was dangerous or frightening. The partner had no choice but to follow, and go one increment further. They were on the train. The directions were clear. The side coach was there to support and guide. The audience was witness.

Each move in a transformation exercises is like one bead on a string of many gradually shaded colored beads. As we transform, we move from one bead to the next until we reach a completely new color, and then we keep going. If a bead is out of place, or a color deepens too quickly, we feel rupture in the order. Here, it is order that leads to the unpredictable.

Transformation calls for letting go. It insists that one remain within the experience of the body. One is safe within awareness. Eyes, ears, and body. Sensation. Spirit. Everything else disappears. No judgments or plans. No opinions, memories, fantasies. Only awareness. Only what you have here, within you, not your stories, background, dreams, desires, images. Just what happens in these moments. Only being in action. It's enough.

Day Nine

Imagination

9A. Body Parts Lead

9B. Non-Stop Talk

9C. Shape/Freeze/Language

9D. Two Shape/One Reads

9E. Two Shape/One Bumps and Talks

9F. Questioner/Narrator

9G. Performance Score: Five Chairs

Start with the smallest of the small, a fraction of a moment of a moment. Now. Or now. Describe it. What are you doing and how are you doing it? Notice the details. Describe them. Are you in motion or not? What's the tension like in different parts of your body? Where are you? In a room? Outside? Where are you in relation to the space, the room, or the out of doors, that you're in? Describe your environment. In detail. Row is each part of your body shaped in relation to each other part? Describe the quality of energy in your body. What thoughts or images are occupying your attention? Do all parts of your body feel of equal tem­perature? What sounds are in your landscape?

Can you be involved with your experience while noticing your involvement?

Practice.

We begin the ninth day with movement. A simple and playful opener which brings together a collection of skills: balance, coordination, travelling through space, rhythm, physical awareness and control, aware ness of others while moving quickly, and identifying and isolating parts of the body. The body learns these skills without any assistance from the analytical mind. If trusted, the body can be a quick learner. Therefore, we approach these exercises without discussion.