Tonight I shared with Augusta a story…
Since I was a kid, I've been taking acting classes. But even after years of practice, I felt uncomfortable about improvisation. For those who don't know what that is: improvisation is what they do on "Who's Line is it Anyway?" In it's simplest form, it means to speak or move or perform without preparation. This principle is used in music, dance, theatre, and other art forms as well. When studying acting, these "improvisations" manifest as games that provide you with boundaries, or rules, that within the structure you are free to explore the scenario in the moment with those ideas in mind.
Teachers told us that improvising was about following impulses. This idea increasingly perplexed me. As time went on, the more I saw people planning (or forcing) their improvisations. Often that would be apparent as I observed my classmates, the mentality that just because in an improv it gives them the sense that they could do whatever they wanted, manipulating the situation to go how they thought it should go. It would annoy me because I could tell when they weren't listening. Changing the natural course of where the trajectory was going with an outcome in mind, they were not open to let it progress organically.
In my own personal practice, I waited. I would wait until I felt an impulse. This investigation was an extremely slow moving one. With this intention, I began to over-analyze. Thoughts would come in, asking: Is that really an impulse? Or was that just a thought of something that would be funny/ interesting? There became a disconnect between what I was feeling and what I was doing.
Then fear set in. The fear that I actually didn't know what an impulse was. That the theory of impulse wasn't even a real honest intention. Beginning to assume that everyone, like myself, was over thinking… my inability to participate fully meant I wasn't as creative or decisive as the others. That maybe impulse wasn't the thing I thought I was searching for! Slowly, I stopped participating voluntarily… over-thinking the impulse to even join the group! I would watch my classmates go up to improvise and it took everything I had to muster up the courage to join in. I would watch as people became different characters… have hilarious moments on a park bench, sharing a soda only to realize the restaurant was burning down, eventually leading to a zombie apocalypse... The more I pondered this, the more mysterious it became. The concept of words being an impulse….. became a distant idea.
For me and my understanding, impulse is more physical. Impulse is the pull to hug a loved one, to high five a friend when they did something AWESOME… Impulse is being drawn to look up at the stars for hours on a clear night, to hold someone's hand, to jump in a puddle… when a giant boulder is calling your name to climb it, or to jump on the bed, to PLAY. Impulse makes sense to me when I dance. When all words slip away from your mind and you're riding the waves of your weight shifting in space. Trusting who you are dancing with and trusting yourself… trusting each other… There is no ego, nothing but what you are doing in that moment.
Continuing to work on the acting and theatre perspective proved to be especially difficult. By the end of my college experience, I approached my acting teacher, a man I deeply respect and admire. I broke down, opened to him about my misunderstanding about impulse in relation to words, and how this had developed into a fear. A fear that, at some point in my career, I felt I would be asked upon to overcome…. to improvise with words. His response was an invitation that I carry with me. He told me…
"When the time comes, and you are asked upon to go there… either you will or you won't. You might not know until you get there, but either you will open and be able to go there, or you won't. There is nothing wrong. Just something to notice."
Six months later, that opportunity arose. I was in Denmark, auditioning for a choreographer in Aarhus. A few days into the audition process... it happened. She lined us all up along the back wall of the black box theatre. All of us, young women from across the planet. Representing a vast range of cultures, countries, languages, and walks of life; she asked us to tell our story.
Tell me who you are through your words and movement.
One by one we stepped forward and told our stories. In our mother tongues. Swedish, Spanish, Japanese, Danish, English, German… and somehow… we could all understand each other. The boundaries slipped away. Everyone was going right to their heart, and it was intoxicating. In awe, absorbing this incredible energy from these women, I suddenly became aware that it was my turn, and having been so engrossed in taking in their stories… I hadn't thought for a moment of what I would do! No predetermination. Empty vessel.
Stepping forward, the story began to come out. Quiet, and for the first time this allowed impulse to become my teacher. To trust the story that was coming out, trusting that intention to lead me forward. In the moment, I was experiencing what it meant to be riding on the pure impulse of emotion through movement and words… Adrenaline fueling the truth. The door opened.
When choreographing and creating there needs to be a balance of what you know and what you are searching for. According to the reservoir of what I've already learned, I call upon the artists that have come before me, people who inform and molded my chosen craft. There is so much to be learned from those who inspire us… as a life-long student, I feel a dedication towards exposing myself to the life-work of others. Now, while embarking on my own artistic endeavors, I take what I know and journey to push farther…. into the blank pages beyond. Creating from the unseen, the unspoken, to explore an unknown entity. Setting out with an intention and not forcing an outcome. In the past few years, when this mentality has saturated my creative process, I've chosen not to use one single movement that I could name. If I could name it, it was gone. In essence, it became an intregal part of the process of creating my own language as a mover. The work takes on its own life and allows you, the artist, to find the ability to dig deeper than you ever thought. What is created is authentic and true.
I try to create this state not only in my work but to embody it in my self. By not forcing a story or a goal, but to let go of the emotional attachment, work hard, and see what arises. This kind of endeavor is a constant teacher, something to develop, continue learning about and cultivating throughout life. I am excited for what will come next. I see a change in my relationships, plans for my future… in allowing myself to listen, to practice the muscle of opening my heart… to let it lead me…is a place of vulnerability that used to be a brick wall…. I'm now learning how to navigate. As Augusta said to me in response:
"If you follow your intuition, you cannot be wrong"
The essence of impulse.
