19D. Props

• Everyone, take the objects that you have brought with you today and spread them around on the floor. Sit next to one object and without touching it, sense it. Climb inside of the object, become it, and sense what that experience would be like.

• Now, everyone, sit next to another object, one that someone else brought and step inside of it. Now another. And another. Leave your objects where they are and come off the floor.

• One person at a time, go out onto the floor and pick up an object, any object you're drawn to, not necessarily the one you brought. Interact with it. Open up your perception to free the object of its common definition, its usual role or function. For example, if you've chosen the object we call "broom," disidentify it. Strip it of its name and function. Sense its aspects, shape, weight, density, color, texture, smell, etc. Play with it as a nameless phenomenon. Move with it. Explore other functions. Let the object become your partner; perhaps it will lead and you will follow.

• When five or so minutes are up, put it back down on the floor and return to the audience. After you've watched for awhile, you can go back onto the floor to explore another object.

• • It may happen that more than one of you is on the floor at the same time. Make room for this. Be aware of each other's physical presence.

With props, students practice noticing physical properties, and from that rawest of material (shape, color, weight, movement, texture) create worlds.

Perceptions trigger the imagination, thereby producing identities and function. They notice and explore the physical aspects of the partner-object. Props become partners, partners with no inherent personality, or function, that has to be figured out or accommodated. The performer lays to rest the psychological or relational issues, which come along with living partners. They create the identity and function of their partner-object and have the power to change it at any time.

Use props that are fairly generic and can sustain two or three different readings.

A sample of props:

Roll of butcher paper Red umbrella Square white floor fan Length of heavy rope Ten-foot tubular pillow Tree pruner Colored silk scarves Bucket of cow bones Rusted wheel Stack of books Green garden hose Pack of pink file cards.

Jess wraps himself with the hose tighter and tighter, constricting his flesh. Judy runs snapping the tree pruner in front of her. Flor lines up rows of books and then tenderly walks on them. Tony sits upright on the rusted wheel and spins himself very slowly, eyes rolling. Tanya wraps her head and face in a red scarf and calls out, her mouth opening and closing. Pete snaps the file cards like karate chops onto the floor. Terri conducts an argumentative dialogue with the rope. Sabine struts elegantly across the back wall, holding the fan out in front of her. Sam rolls around on the butcher paper, crunching and tearing at it. Stephan makes a very tidy bed of bones and then lays down on them.

We live in a world of form. We're surrounded by masses of shapes, colors, textures and movements. It's a rare occasion when we take a moment from our day-to-day business to see what's around us. A trip to the museum, a day in the country, but even then we often see form as content. Tree as "tree" is a static experience. Sensing the phenomenon that we call tree, without naming it, sets up a present time and open-ended interaction.

Working with objects offer students relief. Objects implore, "Touch me, move me, move with me," drawing the performer toward them and into the realm of image and material, sensation and vision. The burden of having to make something happen lifts. Once handled, felt, seen, moved, and moved with, objects lose their conventional boundaries and burrow into the imagination. The object reduces the pressure on the self as subject.

We played with objects as children. We were adept at making imaginary worlds with them. As adults, we're not very far away from that particular grace. It's familiar, but we don't allow ourselves to do it. We've forgotten why this is pleasurable, why we did it.

Sylvia was improvising with two chairs. She put them down and began to talk to them as if they were her parents. Later on in the improvisation, she sat on one of the chairs. It was as if she sat on her mom.

As soon as the performer addresses an object (Sylvia's chair), it becomes permanently fixed in that space. The performers acknowledgements fill it with life. Objects, whether real or imaginary, or characters or entities, are integral aspects of the scene. Unless the performer initially indicates their temporality (i.e. "Jim, you're only there now, aren't you?"), the object can't be forgotten or ignored.

The same holds true with an alluded to object that's not physically present. Suppose Roberta talks to an imaginary baby in her improvisation, holds it for a period of time and then puts it down on the floor. Whether she's relating to that baby or not, the baby remains for us in that space on the floor unless she directly indicates that it's gone. In fact, if she were to inadvertently step on that spot, we would so strongly hold the baby in our mind there, that to us, she would be stepping on the baby.