2C. All at Once: Sound and Movement

• Start very simply, a simple movement with your hand, your head, or one leg Sound the gesture as you do it. Make the sound and the movement occur simultaneously, exist for the same amount of time, be of the same tex­ture and quality. For instance, closing your right hand: as you close your right hand, make a vocal sound that's of the same time duration and move­ment quality. Let one sound and movement lead you to another, and so on. Vary your speeds and qualities. Work with this on your own for a few min­utes. Stay focused on your inner experience. Screen out the activities of the others around you.

As we take apart and examine forms of expression, be it movement, sound or speech, we become more aware of ourselves in relation to our experience. Clearly, we are not our experience. We're the conscious­ness that witnesses that process. We're not our feelings. Feelings, emo­tions, and thoughts pass through us. When we laugh, we're not laughter, we're experiencing laughter; we're aware of it: we hear it and feel it. Once we become aware of ourselves laughing, we notice a space between our awareness and the laughter-between the one who is doing and the action that's being done. It's from this perspective, that we're able to play with the sound of laughter, and even the feel of it.

The awareness that our every action is a construct of some constel­lation of influences can be devastating at first. We don't know what's ours, and what's been handed down to us. We don't know who we are. Even­tually, this understanding frees us. We let go of all that we've been hold­ing and realize that we never had anything anyway.

When we're improvising, personal material may occasionally surface. We have a choice-whether to allow the images or feelings to be ex­pressed or to push them back into the shadows of the psyche. If its fear that causes us to repress this material, we're constantly working under this limitation. This affects everything we do. We're always on guard. If, on the other hand, we hold these images and feelings, with curiosity and an understanding that they're only images and feelings, and we still choose not to express the image or feeling because of their appropri­ateness to the moment, we're free to move along. In other words, we detach from what we call our own, what's preciously ours. Opportuni­ties are infinite once we can freely explore our psyches. The overwhelming panic that we have nothing to say becomes panic to play with. The "unac­ceptable" flaw which we keep hidden is already familiar. The grace that we envy in others is available to us. There is no "mine" and no "yours."

2D. Sound and Movement Dialogue

• Stand in a diagonal line across the floor, facing the same direction, every­body equidistant from each other, so that you're looking at the back of the person in front of you (except for the first person).

• The first person turns around to the person behind—this is all done quickly— and presents a sound and movement action. Clear form, clear intention. The second person mirrors that action, form and content, and then turns to the person behind them (3rd person) and does another sound and movement for that person. That third person mirrors the second person's sound and movement, turns, and responds with a sound and movement action for the next person. And we do this up and down the line.

• Get faster. Let go. Get faster to let go. Actions become like a wave, up and down the line, and nobody's thinking. Everybody's mirroring, responding, mirroring, responding. Faster, faster, smooth it out, faster, don't think, respond. Pretend you're wild, erratic, nuts, impulsive, out of control. Faster, faster, faster, get it, give it, get it, give it, faster.

The mirroring and responding of this exercise demands that students free themselves from any pre-conceived plans or notions. Increas­ingly higher speeds, and front-to-back change, turn each student into a carrier, an electron. There's no time to create a new path, there's only time to keep the current flowing. Because of the speed, students' re­sponses tend to move into areas and territories they haven't previously let themselves explore. But even the new and exciting encounter can't be indulged in, it must be embraced once and let go.