Acting - Day 4 - Play
We spent the first half of class on reading our bios. It was good to hear what other people had to say about their role models. I was especially impressed by how many people choose a parent.
After that we started several exercises on play - little schoolyard games almost that tried to get us to let down our guard a little. The games were physical and fun. The most interesting was a game where we had to secretly copy someone’s motions without being caught.
At one point we did an exercise where we were supposed to show someone that we were happy to see them, and I had a hard time showing genuine happiness physically. In fact, I feel like I have a very hard time expressing myself without words compared to the other students. This was true in the physical exercise. This is something to watch for and to work on.
Later on I improvised a birthday scene with Lili. I can remember feeling awkward and self conscious about my body language in an every day situation. I also admired people who were more creative and off the wall in improvisational story telling. People came up with scenarios like ‘its both of our birthdays’ and ‘i brought you a cat’ which were good comic relief.
I think the main thing to focus on is this feeling of holding back and not being spontaneous, open and inviting. It’s really driven from the fear of being judged, but that is so hard to let go of…