Today I attended a class held by a distinguished Physical theatre creator.
I thought it would be enlightening to see this new progressive form of theatre in action and see if it's simply the work of some drama enthusiast hoping to perhaps gain some prestige, or in fact a whole new form of art.
I was asked along with a few other interested attendants to firstly walk around a space bare foot and "feel the way my body worked," with specific attention to be paid to the way my heels hit the floor and my body swaying with the motion. "Does your mind body react to the fact it's being scrutinised?" "Now you are paying such close attention do you feel each individual muscle and tendon 'twinge' with the elegance of the movement you always take for granted?"
At this point my phone rings loudly and cuts the zombie-like aura of this strange situation. The lady who takes the class, who had her eyes firmly shut at this point, (perhaps due to narcotics, I couldn't be sure) hisses violently and briefly opens her eyes to snap a fierce yet slightly red eyed glance in my direction. I apologise, and turn off the phone that had so ignorantly ruined the moment. The class continues.
"What i would like you to do now is to form two lines, like the carriages of a train you must embody to the precise details of the one who leads you" After a less Wildesque approach, she tells us to copy the person at the front of the line. I decided to make the most of what was in effect, an absolutely ridiculous situation, led by now what I assume to be a lady on so much crack that she sees us simply as spotty butterflies, swirling aimlessly around in the air to tickle her purple pilled fantasy.
However, something magically ironic happened to this prejudice skeptic, he was captured.
I suddenly did start to feel the intricacy of every movement that we supposedly take for granted. The sways, the closed-eyed crawling and the roliing around seemd to be releasing me from some sort of constraint that we feel in society nowadays. When it was my turn to lead I scuttled and collapsed and ran and barked... I felt like no one was looking when in fact I was being followed in every way. Somehow the fact that others followed what I was doing (as was the game) gave me confidence to explore every inch of creativity. When I had to follow once again I suddenly felt a massive wave of sorrow, as if I my ideals were being repressed and had once again become a solitary figure in chain of being. Without purposefully coining part of Ron Burgundy's classic line, those who followed were in some kind of "glass case of emotion."
The sounds of our breathing added some kind of fluidity to the movement whilst our footsteps added a kind of warm noise. We each realised that our body, whether intentionally or not, expresses everything about us. There must be some kind of symbolic gesture in what we became but I cannot put my finger on it.
After an hour break, we returned to find ourselves lethargic, slightly embarassed and dislinking the idea of doing it again. Despite our feelings of resentment, off we went again. This time my feet felt like anchors and my arms like tree trunks...others were similar. We had gone from ballet dancers in Swan Lake to truckers on a pub crawl, the antithesis of energy and beauty. I couldn't help but draw parellels between what had happened to us and that of those under an extremist dictatorship. To begin with, we had flustered and flown in some sort of overwhelming natural rebellion against etiquette; those who stood agaisnt a tyrannical oppressor but now we simply followed because we had lost the energy to fight, out actions were less sharp and exciting and we simply followed to avoid any confrontation.
Perhaps that is a little far fetched. Draw whatever you can from the situtation. I think i must have found it interesting that we all claim to be unique, but because uniqueness is common....it's pretty standard. If we all flew around wildly, then no one would blink.
What am I talking about.
Yours Confudeddly,
Mr Lear.
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