Frances Sedayao, Facing East Dance & Music (fedm.org)
Happy Friday, lovely souls, and welcome to the Open Mic! Guest posts will return next week with some humorous work from J. A. Adams. For now, let’s talk!
If you’re new here or haven’t stopped by in a while, here’s how it works: I pose a question and we all discuss. Comments are threaded so you can reply to each other directly. The conversation stays open all weekend!
Today’s question is inspired by a lovely article by Ron Bieganski, on teaching theater to youth. (For more on Bieganski and his work with youth, read Ré’s recent post at sparksinshadow.) I found his article at the perfect time, since I’ve been struggling to get momentum on a final piece for my IWL anthology. Bieganski writes:
Part of the problem… is that most acting training takes for granted that the actor already understands where creativity, emotion and spontaneity come from. But the more I’ve worked with youth, the more I’ve realized that they don’t understand these things…
I asked myself the following questions: How do you develop focus to stay in the moment? How do you develop an open, fluid emotional connection within your work? How do you develop a nonjudgmental attitude that allows your body to be a virtuoso reactor? And isn’t all of the above something I want to develop in youth whether they are actors or not? Isn’t this something I want to continue developing in myself?
He goes on to describe a technique that is rooted in the physical experience of the body, in sensation and movement leading the way to emotional openness.
My question to you today is: How do the sensations and movements of your body inform your creative process? (Or, if you do not consider yourself an artist, how does your body inform your everyday life?)
Go to it!
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
Thanks for the shout out, Lisa! For me and for Neurokitchen. 🙂 I love this question, and am looking forward to seeing what your readers have to say. I’m going to think about it for a while, and answer later.
So pleased to be able to give the shout out. 🙂
Okay, I’ll have a go. First part…….movements informing the creative process. I practice my guitar every day and in warming up I regularly just noodle to see what happens. I’ve no idea where my fingers will go. Mostly it’s just random finger walking back and forth and then once in a while a happy accident. A lick, the start of melody, a different chord progression…….and away I go to try to create a new tune/song from it. That moment is exquisite at times. Then, when I sing, I consciously try to keep the physical in my mind – the posture, the slack jaw, open lungs, wide chest………and out it comes. It sounds so different when I don’t do that. The opening up allows ideas and sounds to come – the closing up just doesn’t allow that flexibility of movement internally. Some practical thought on what I try to do. Have a good weekend creating, folks.
Wow! It’s true– the opening up of the physical helps a lot with the opening up of the creative. I’ve noticed that sort of thing, too!
Alan, I love this! No matter what kind of art one does, the warming-up/noodling/doodling process is so important.
In my IWL writing workshop we were talking about creation as a “downloading” process. One writer said that she feels like the work just comes to her divinely, and her job is to take dictation; she feels that she’s just a vessel. Another writer, who is also a singer, added that while that may be true, it’s vital to prepare the vessel to receive the divine inspiration; that’s where singing exercises and stretching and etc come in. I love this way of thinking of our bodies: as vessels we have to prepare.
I like this idea too — divine inspiration!
When I dance, and when I do certain physical exercises, I notice that I feel better about myself and have more confidence in my abilities. Not just my physical abilities, but confidence in my ability to be creative and complete a creative thought. It’s interesting to me that when I feel creative, I’d really rather get up and move. That impulse kind of works against sitting down to write (and against knitting and crocheting!) and I think my habit of high-fiving myself with a dervishy dance when I’ve written or accomplished something that especially excites me, probably comes from the friction that rises up between those two things.
Other than that, I’m finding that my responses to the smells of the natural world this spring are surprising me and somehow inspiring me as they do every year when I can open the windows again. I’m also a very tactile person and often thrilled by the feel of something on my skin, like a scrumptious yarn, linen or velvet fabric, holding someone’s hand, or even holding a different or new glass or eating utensil. These things often spark the desire to create inside me. What I want to work at creating usually takes a little or a lot more thought, but it’s usually something about those sensations in my body that brings up the desire to begin.
I should start high-fiving myself with a dervishy dance too. 🙂 Love that idea.
I’m feeling really energetic today and I’m thinking my morning had a lot to do with it: half an hour of walking, combined with a visit to the farmers’ market (strawberries and raspberries and yellow peaches!!!). It’s just so good to get blood and oxygen moving through my body, and markets are always a feast for the senses.
I also feel there’s an interesting friction between the apparent stillness of sitting to create, and physical movement.
I want to be so much more connected to my body than I am — I still forget about it way too often. This week I’ll try opening every creative session with some movement. I’ll let you know how it goes.
For the last couple of weeks of the IWL workshop we’ve been working with instructor Brenda Wong Aoki, who’s a theater/performance artist (and a fabulous teacher). We did stretches and mimes with her, but the thing that’s rocked my world is sound exercises. In large and small groups, we’ve created soundscapes by making assigned noises (singing-type stuff like humming or singing single notes, and more textual vocalizations like repeating certain phrases) and by improvising. I have made music since I was a kid, and I love singing and dancing, but contributing to these soundscapes has given me a completely different experience of generating sound and of interacting with sound in my body. The vibrations are like stretching from the inside out. I’m wondering now whether I can incorporate this sound-making into my creative process.
That sounds wonderful! It reminds me of having a mantra for meditation. That sort of refocusing and freshening. I also like to sing and hum, and how it makes me feel. I look forward to reading about how you incorporate movement into your creative sessions, and about your further adventures in sound-making!
Yes! You reminded me of something else I wanted to say about being in the body: when we’re really there, it takes us out of being too much in the mind, and that’s exactly what I need for “refocusing and freshening,” as you say. 🙂 Strenuous physical activity is good for this, as was the soundscaping — anything where we have to concentrate solely on what the body is doing, so that we don’t have time to follow our thoughts. 😉