dance studio at one of my favorite places to move, The Sweat Spot
The past month I’ve had an increase in movement in my life. I started taking a sparring class, and though my knuckles are raw and my muscles are sore, I feel fantastic. I’m honing in on my power, gaining confidence, and building strength. With my awesome theater company, The Vagrancy, our last actor workout was a devised theater piece mostly based on physicality. I’ve also been taking this incredible acting class with Steppenwolf, which is mostly based on the Viewpoints technique. The class is opening myself up in ways I never thought possible and it’s blowing my mind! All this has me thinking a lot about movement and the power of movement to move you.
Movement is not thinking, it’s doing. Movement is inherently visceral. It taps into your core. I’ve always been a believer in the connection of the physical and emotional. If I’m not in a good place emotionally, it’s no surprise to me that this feeling will manifest itself in a sore throat or stomach ache. When I’m feeling in really good shape, or just got out of a killer dance class, I also feel incredibly happy! It’s all one and the same.
And so it is with acting. I think it’s really important to be in touch with our bodies, not just to be fit and healthy, but to be able to convey moments, scenes, characters more truthfully. You could tell a whole scene without its text and it could be just as powerful, if not more. You can discover new things about your character through movement. Movement shakes shit up– yeah, literally, but also inside. I’ll find myself tearing up within in the first five minutes of a Viewpoints exercise just because it’s loosening all that stuff in me, in my core, that is typically bottled up to get along with my day to day. But acting isn’t day to day. It’s pivotal moments. It’s conflict. It’s ordinary made extraordinary. It moves you.
Love it!