The shape of emotions
I recently participated in a fascinating workshop. One part was standard sitting meditation to get us focused, and in addition there were two movement sessions guided by an acting coach. These exercises drew out and allowed us to experience the relationship between body posture and emotion.
First, we simply took various positions and examined what emotions they seemed to evoke. Some were obvious-- standing with your legs apart and your back arched feels like exhileration or openness. But others were more subtle. In particular, some were different with the eyes open and closed. We made a "ball" shape, like the fetal position but balanced on our feet. With my eyes closed, this felt safe, sort of compact, warm, and comforting. But with my eyes open, seeing the big world around me, crouching in a ball felt small, as if I were attempting to hide.
[Perhaps this is closer to the truth than we might like to think. When we are blithely living in our own world (eyes closed), it feels safe to have our own routine, our own enclosed house and family and friends-- the little world we all create. But outside events-- illness, natural disasters, economic collapse-- can force our eyes open, revealing that the little worlds we create are rather small and fragile, and not really safe.]
The second session was even more fascinating. It was called "sculpture garden," and was done in pairs. One person was the artist, and one was the art. The art closed his/her eyes, and allowed the artist to position them into some pose. The job of the art was to comply with the pose, find a way to emotionally "fill" it, and just feel what was happening. ("Filling" means taking the shape wholeheartedly, not in a phony or hesitant way).
This messes with our self-image of "what we can be." If we are a timid person (or have that image of ourselves), how do we fill a pose with upraised fist and wide legs? It's an educational experience to realize that we can in fact fill any human pose, simply because we are human. And then that emotion will be evoked within us, even if we rarely allow ourselves to feel it.
I have never done any actor training, but this intrigued me to know more about how actors learn their art. I can definitely understand that poor acting is somehow related to not "filling" the poses correctly-- in other words, having the body and the implied emotion not in tune. Fascinating stuff.
First, we simply took various positions and examined what emotions they seemed to evoke. Some were obvious-- standing with your legs apart and your back arched feels like exhileration or openness. But others were more subtle. In particular, some were different with the eyes open and closed. We made a "ball" shape, like the fetal position but balanced on our feet. With my eyes closed, this felt safe, sort of compact, warm, and comforting. But with my eyes open, seeing the big world around me, crouching in a ball felt small, as if I were attempting to hide.
[Perhaps this is closer to the truth than we might like to think. When we are blithely living in our own world (eyes closed), it feels safe to have our own routine, our own enclosed house and family and friends-- the little world we all create. But outside events-- illness, natural disasters, economic collapse-- can force our eyes open, revealing that the little worlds we create are rather small and fragile, and not really safe.]
The second session was even more fascinating. It was called "sculpture garden," and was done in pairs. One person was the artist, and one was the art. The art closed his/her eyes, and allowed the artist to position them into some pose. The job of the art was to comply with the pose, find a way to emotionally "fill" it, and just feel what was happening. ("Filling" means taking the shape wholeheartedly, not in a phony or hesitant way).
This messes with our self-image of "what we can be." If we are a timid person (or have that image of ourselves), how do we fill a pose with upraised fist and wide legs? It's an educational experience to realize that we can in fact fill any human pose, simply because we are human. And then that emotion will be evoked within us, even if we rarely allow ourselves to feel it.
I have never done any actor training, but this intrigued me to know more about how actors learn their art. I can definitely understand that poor acting is somehow related to not "filling" the poses correctly-- in other words, having the body and the implied emotion not in tune. Fascinating stuff.
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