Day 4-Thursday

It's almost chilly out tonight, compared to how warm it's been.

There's this early point in Meisner where you do the chair work across from each other with your knees touching.  I can empathize at that distance, but not always pick up on impulses (my own or theirs.)  In class we've been doing partner work, playing with distance, focus, connection, presence.  (And I've always had this dread of partner work, when you have to choose/be chosen, I always feel like I'm gonna be the odd one out, the kid who can't play sports that no one wants on their team, the one that gets picked last.  And I think I take myself out before it comes to choosing, to avoid the humiliation of rejection.  It's an old pattern.  It makes me think of playing "duck, duck, goose," which I hated.  It's why I held back and resisted the grid work last year.  It's also self-fulfilling, I think, to create an aloofness that keeps people at a distance.  At any rate, it's not an option now.)  We did a lot of mirroring last night.  It's a lot like dancing (and in fact, when the exercise was over, I had impulse to curtsy, as did my partner last night) where there is a soft enough focus that you are more in tune with each other.  I'd forgotten about struggling with this last year, the keeping connected to your partner (or however many people are on stage) wherever they are on stage, without having to keep eye contact.  It's funny, it's seems like it should be easy, we do it all the time in life, but something about being on stage, in an imaginary world, with other people's words, inhabiting someone else's life, with the awareness of other people watching, a self-consciousness, makes it more difficult.  I'm glad we are doing it.

Another funny thing, is that I don't really feel like I know the song, if you asked me to sing it now, I wouldn't be able to do it, but in the group, doing other actions, giving and receiving energy across distance, I can get a lot of the lyrics.  (Again, it's partly because the pressure is off.  It's that non-perfection, no shame, atmosphere.)

And I made up my routine thing during lunch, thinking we'd do it in a big group like everything else.  But when she asked people who had one ready to go up, I went up, and only about a third of the class had one ready (I had an "oh sh..." moment, but after going up, might as well go through with it and not back down.  Again, it's never gonna be perfect.)  And I still thought, well, okay, we'll do this together.  But, no.  Smaller group.  And then again individually.  I forgot part of mine (movement for seven words); amusingly, the one I forgot was "remember."  I'll probably refine it, but I'm glad to have done it already.  I think they will somehow be incorporated into the performance piece.

The centering is lasting longer.  Imaginary worlds would help me with the statues.  So glad I signed up for this.