13B. Image Making

• Let's stand in a circle. Each of us will describe an image in a few words, and we'll go around the circle.

• Now, we'll go around the circle again. We'll work with the same image, but this time express it a different way. In other words, change the way you use the language to get the picture, or experience, across.

• Now, we'll go around the circle one more time and, again use the same image, but change the form of the language, the words you choose, and the way you express and order them, still getting the initial image, or experience, across.

Example:

1st) A woman kneels beside the river and pounds her fists into the water.

2nd) Hit, slap, pound, smack. On my knees. The river listens. On my knees. I hurt.

3rd) She falls to her knees amid screams of horror, pounds the water, the river rushes. Fists, fists. Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh. Fists, fists, Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh.

Pretend you're a poet. Mess around with the language. Move pieces ahead or forward. Enjoy the way the words sound. Like the rhythms. Experiment. Languaging is its own experience. Its a separate experience from what it represents. Different ordering of words, speaking of words, rhythms, pauses, and voices result in different experience. And vice versa.

We describe, question, speak from inside experience, make lists, ^J report, make sense, don't make sense, make commentary, analyze, reason, gossip, dialogue, monologue, count, repeat, puzzle, rhyme, abstract, concretize, pray....

Make an image. Try each of the above. And even find more forms.

13C. One Move /One Sound/One Speak

• Everyone, arrange yourselves into trios. You'll build an improvisation together. Each of you will play different roles. One will be Mover, one Sounder and one Speaker. We will do three rounds, so that you will have a chance to explore each role.

• The Mover takes care of movement. The Sounder and Speaker must sound and speak without moving. Absolutely. No movement at all, except facial expression. The Sounder and Speaker may only move to change location and shape. It might not be appropriate for you to speak, or sound, from the posture that you are in; you may have to change posture and location to accommodate your intention. You may re-shape and relocate as often as you want. You are part of the whole picture, the image.

• Even though you're playing different roles, you're always in a time/space/ shape relationship with others and the room. Be aware of the whole picture and the whole sound, moment-to-moment. If you are, then every action will be relevant to the whole of everything.

• Each of you draws from your own internal landscape while responding to the images, sounds, and feelings presented by your partners.

• Speaker and Sounder, you are collaborating on the sound space, so listen to each other.

• Speaker, experience the sound of your language, the shape of your mouth, the feel of your tongue. Don't let the content of what you are saying overrule your experience.

• Mover, pay attention to detail, to the spatial relationship with the Sounder and Speaker. Acting out what you are hearing is, of course, one choice, but you may also draw from your imagination, make associations and then shape accordingly.

• Everyone, follow awareness.

• When I call stop, talk about what you liked and didn't like, how you might make it clearer, tighter, more connected, musical and, of course, lively.

• Switch roles.

Everything that happens is a part of the whole configuration of signs. The physical, vocal, and verbal actions interact as they interpenetrate. This weaving depends on a particular clarity. There must be no rough edges to the sounds, movements or words. The timing of each expression must be crisply what it is. Only then can the performers sense one another.

Awareness/Emotion

By far the biggest hurdle in all of this is to maintain body awareness while involved with language or emotion. Emotion may surface due to a sensation or a thought. A movement, posture, idea or memory may trigger emotion. We hook into emotion ferociously, and blind ourselves to the moment-to-moment sensations of the body. Since we identify with, and believe we are the emotion, we feel the need to either relate to the emotion all-out or repress it. We rant, rave, moan, groan, laugh, ciy, tremble, scream, tense up. If we savor the ongoing moments of these actions, moment to moment, notice them in detail, then we can stay both in our body and open for change. If we get seduced by emotion only, then noticing stops. Change stops. We get stuck.

"But emotion is in the body," we might say, "How can I leave my body when I'm in emotion?" We don't actually leave our body (that's impossible), but we do stop paying attention to it. So in this exercise, we pay attention to the body by not moving it at all as we sound or talk. And for our purposes, it must not move at all. We're strict about that. Intended stillness demands attention and that's how we stay in the body. Seems funny doesn't it?

Our body doesn't want to be still. It fidgets. Everybody has his or her own peculiar choreography, especially when experiencing arousal. Some of us talk with our hands waving around like flags, or poke them into space like pop-up books. Some of us rock back and forth on our feet, change our stance, move from place to place, look around, or realign our neck in relation to our shoulders. This list can go on and on.

In order to keep the body still, we must pay attention to it. We must be in it. Completely. As soon as our attention sways, even for a second, fidgeting will resume. Of course, there's nothing wrong with fidgets in themselves. Noticed fidgets offer an abundance of information and style. But unintentional fidgets result in a limited palette of both experience and expression.

Opeech is action and movement.

Say "Wait." Feel it. Notice the lips puckering to form the "w" sound. The air blowing out between the lips. The lips pulling back and the sides of the tongue on the "ai." The tip of the tongue on the "t." What else do you notice when you say, "Wait."?

The Sounder, Speaker and Mover are in a musical relationship. They're noticing the rhythms, pulses, retards, punctuations. They're composing, as any musicians would. Time is in their bodies. They're lis­tening to one another through their senses; watching their collective time, space and shape patterns. They sense how every moment of their action hits up against, passes through, circles around, coincides with, and slips in between their partner's moments of action. All three hear the patterns of sound and see the patterns of image. They shape the improvisation together. They serve the music. They hold their own impulses with a loose hand. Direct responses unfold. The material they notice, hear, see, and feel determines what they do next.

Each movement of the Mover, sound of the Sounder, word and word parts of the Speaker weaves into the tapestry just as a weaver knows how the color, size and texture of the current stitch relates to the whole pattern. The performers begin to develop this mutual weave which precludes the possibility of anyone spinning off into their own world unaware of their partners.

In order for this type of noticing to happen, each member of the group must do more than simply observe each other's action. They must feel it internally, sense it: notice and "get it" simultaneously. Immediately. They "get it" through their bodies, not from time-consuming interpretation or evaluation.

A musical relationship allows performers a more spacious relationship. They hear each other in time. They don't have to pounce on each other's content right away. They begin to see how images, feelings, stories may contrast, stretch, and poke out from their dreamlike, surreal, super-real imagination.