Architecture

Surrounded by Surroundings.

Walking down an empty corridor… a Long Tunnel.
I feel the need to cartwheel.
Don’t ask me why. But I do.

Within Anne Bogart’s View Points, working with Architecture is to move with the space itself. Allowing the environment or the architecture of the room to become an active participant in the relationship.

This can get overlooked quite easily. I can think of the walls of the room, the objects within it as inanimate, non-movable monoliths that are there to navigate AROUND…. Versus information, reflectors, amplifiers to navigate WITH.

I can get complacent in familiar spaces.
I don’t really have the time or the energy to take in all of my surroundings all of the time.
So with this ViewPoint, the idea is to invite in curiosity with all that is surrounding me… Slow down and Open my eyes to actually take in the architecture.
(My brain jumps to Jack Skellington’s song “Whats This” from The Nightmare Before Christmas.)

How can I see with new eyes so I can make the room come alive. So I can anchor myself in what IS actually present and maybe (just maybe) be affected by my environment as much as the thoughts in my own head.

Just like dance or movement uses Shape and rhythm to tell story,
architecture also calls upon shape and movement to tell its own story.

What a joy to walk into a space that has been inspired in its design.
Or the opposite? Poor design can feel lifeless and void.
(I remember many early apartments I rented in concrete boxed buildings took a lot of work to make it feel like a “home.”)

But, even an empty room, is not just an empty room.
It is inches and feet of possibility.
I can either take the space I am in for granted, or I allow it to be my ally.
To either compliment, or to contrast, I can allow it to support this moment.

I can interact with the architecture in my environment to invoke ease, or create discomfort.
I can embody the lines and curves of my environment to explore what the surrounding shapes feel like if I put them on for myself.
….….become the hard lines of the mausoleum, or I can soften and crumble.
…………..mimic the billowing of the branches in the wind, or I can stand steadfast, unmovable.

When I take in Architecture as a ViewPoint I can give purpose to otherwise ornamental things. I can actually help anchor my motivation and intent outside of my own body and give it shape in the world we have created on stage (or in life).

I can’t quite remember where or when this first dropped in as an actor.
But I have a clear memory from an acting class at Creighton University with Bill Hutson, and the moment called for me to become angry at the other character.
I decided to get really close to that person, because I really wanted to affect them. And Bill stopped me in my choice, and asked “If you are that angry, and that close, what is stopping you from throttling them?”
Well shoot. They were right. There was NOTHING standing in the way from me hitting this person except my own will power, and for that character in that moment, will power was not on the menu.

So much more interesting to stay on the other side of the room. Place the table and chairs in between me and them, as if this kitchen set was the only thing holding me back. Now I had a relationship with that chair. I NEEDED that chair. I wasn’t just gripping because I was asked to by the director. I was gripping because it had purpose.

I mentioned in the introduction of this series how the View Points helped create cohesion or a shared physical/emotional language between the actors in the company I was working with.

Simply steeping in exercises to explore these basic tenets, we began to not only cultivate our own point of view as a character, but know each others… and more importantly, create a third and palpable point of view of the collective.

So, while architecture may seem like a weird thing to include into the ViewPoints, by weaving it in you create a bridge between story and physical location. You give a heartbeat to the setting.

Nothing is for nothing.
(Why have an elaborate archway if it does not play into the story some how….)

In exploration, this ViewPoint doesn’t need to be literal representation of the setting in the body, however, playing at over exaggerating in such a gift in the process of exploration…
Once you let go of the preparation, you are left with the imprints of your inquiry in the DNA of the piece as a whole.
At that point, the work done in rehearsal may be imperceptible, but it will be felt.

By inviting in curiosity to the architecture that surround you.
We can slow down and create intention not only with how we move through space,
but with the things we choose to fill it.
Oh, to give focus to the things that anchor… that nourish… that inspire….
that challenge…that ignite.

Until soon….
See you at the next threshold,

xo
Kirstin