18A. Four Forms

• Everyone, distance yourself from one another and stand with your arms relaxed by your sides. I'll describe four forms, or activities, to you. For the next ten minutes or so, improvise by switching back and forth between them. Spend as long as you like in each one. Don't rush through. Be sure to keep the forms distinct from one another. In other words, don't blend or merge their aspects. Shift clearly from one to another.

• In the first form, involve yourself with only breath. No movement. Remain still in whatever posture you're in. Play with the ordering, rhythm, depth, and force of your breath. No voice, just breath.

• The second form is very slow and continuous movement in silence. No sounds, stops, starts or pauses. Ever moving slow-motion.

• The third is large, loud, travelling, sound and movement. Keep the sound and movement linked and always travel through the room with it.

• The final form is non-stop talking. Stop moving for this one, be completely still and put all your attention into your talking. Let one idea lead you to the next, free associate, lose control. Play with these forms a while.

• Sometime in the next few minutes, associate with someone near you. Form a partnership and continue improvising within these four forms. Now, you're in direct relation with each other; you're in the same world. Every move, every shift is a response to your partner and is either in the same form, or one that's different.

These four forms were chosen for their contrasting qualities. Others could also work, since it's contrasting quality that's pertinent to the exercise.

If students are able to find reason to shift from silent, slow-motion movement to loud sound and movement, then, they can find reason to shift from anything to everything. The shift must reflect an internal logic. In other words, it must make sense to them. The process must be a Jiving experience.

Why would one want to shift from very slow movement to loud, boisterous, sound and movement? What inspires someone to shift from a non-verbal orientation to language? Well, we're forcing an issue here, but we're exercising the mind. The mind is a limb of the body. Take an arm, for instance. If the arm doesn't move for an extended period of time, it atrophies, withers, loses its capability for movement, and forgets. Then, it has to be coaxed back, reminded, exercised, and encouraged to recover.

If intention is there, the mind can expand to accommodate and rationalize any contrasting realities, no matter how quickly they arise and how unreasonable they initially appear. Imagination doesn't attach itself to anything. It doesn't want to stay put or not stay put. It's just out of practice. Now, we crawl on our bellies, avoiding the bats. Now, we pay homage to the tarantula. Now, dive into the luxury of the pool. If we can adapt to external changes, we can adapt to internal ones. We are stalking change, adapting adapting itself.

All of this inner stalking, tripping off into the imagination, can distract us from the world around us. The latter part of the exercise moves the student into a partnering relationship, and insists that they come out of themselves enough to notice the other, empathize and share reality-making.

Limited to four choices, participants engage with the forms differently each time they return to them. Since one form is slow with no voice; another largely physical and vocal; another, only breath with restrained body; and the fourth, pure language, each addresses a different quality of energy and brings contrast and liveliness to communication. Each form, centers on particular aspects of the mind (slow moving = sadness, sensuality; large sound and movement = joy, or maybe, rage). Slow movement might mean something different the second time around, or the fourth, or fifth. Any form can be the voice of just about anything.

Language Forms

We have many ways to structure language interaction. How we structure the interaction affects the content. Some of these are as follows:

Simultaneous Monologues: Two or more speakers intersticing language with no bridge of content. They're in a musical relationship, exploring time, pitch, rhythm, volume, and tension. Collaborative Monologue: Two or more speakers simultaneously offering language and using each other's language to form a single monologue.

Merging Monologue: Two or more speakers beginning with simultaneous monologues, then gradually taking on each others content until all monologues become one.

Text-Makerv'Color er: Two or more speakers: one provides the language: repeating words, changing sound and/or playing with their syntax; the others may repeat words, change their sound and play with their order, but they cannot introduce new material. Both the Text-Maker and the Colorer are collaborating on the total sound expression.

Dialogue: Two or more speakers exchanging language in direct relationship.

Dialogue/Monologue: Two or more speakers alternating between dialogue and monologue modes, stepping in and out of the content of each.

Text-Maker/Echoer: Two or more speakers. One provides the language; the others enhance what the speaker says by using the language provided. They may only repeat words in the order they hear them and as they hear them. Both the Text Maker and the Echoer collaborate on the total sound expression. (See bulking) Co-Creative Monologue: Two or more speakers alternate speaking and following the same content; they take turns developing the same story.

The following exercises further explore aspects of awareness, relationship to others, and space.