Shape + Space
Perspective illuminated through process.
The human brain, so I’ve heard, really enjoys figuring shit out.
We actually get a dopamine hit when we come up with possible conclusions of how things may turn out, REGARDLESS of if we are right we are wrong.
This is why plot twists are so satisfying, cliff hangers, the unknown. Even if it causes discomfort, I subconsciously get rewarded when I try and “figure it out.”
And with that,
Perspective is everything.
What I see, What I don’t see
all informs into how I fill those gaps.
The story I create in my head.
Filling in the gaps of the unknown with assumptions.
How I process that information is layered in my history, my experience,
filtering my preferences and prayers…
This is not always active and conscious …
The cognitive mapping of my brains encodes, not only places but also experiences, so I have room to navigate fluidly as new moments arise on impulse…
So How often do I pause in familiar places to see with new eyes?
How often do I allow myself to step to the side, get out of my own way and look at things differently?
How often can I see the parts of me that I sometimes judge for “not being good enough” or “I don’t belong” for what they really are expressions of my values that may just be hiding under the veil of what I assume is “normal”?
I want to take some time over the next few weeks to explore how Anne Bogart’s ViewPoints opened me up to see perspective not as something to try and find a “unified” or “right” way to be/see… but a doorway to connection and even revelation. Not only how we benefit by being surrounded multiple perspectives, but how we get to be active participants in how that perspective takes shape.
Anne Bogart is a visionary director and writer, she co-founded the SITI Company along with Tadashi Suzuki in 1992 and remained a long-time professor at Columbia University. She has reshaped how theater is made and what the rehearsal process looks like encouraging the art to remain unfinished, alive, and always becoming. Her approach and philosophy is fascinating and has impacted me both in the theater and in my life. (“What’s The Story” and “A Director Prepares” are well worn on my bookshelf)
I was first introduced to Bogart’s work by my friend and brilliant human being, Susann Suprenaut. (I mentioned Susann in my first writing, how she me through these calibrations of play so I could find a new sense of power in my move to Los Angeles in 2014.) But when I first worked as an actor in a production she was composing in Omaha, Nebraska, with the View Points as our resource as our guide?
I was lit up from the inside out.
I was met with a practice of time and space—an improvisational language that invites artists to drop into awareness first, value responding to one another as a foundation. We spent time exploring things like Tempo, Kinesthetic Response, Repetition and Spatial Relationship. Before we even got into script, or into plot, we had built a shared language between us. A common vocabulary, an understanding that made it seem like we had spent lifetimes together.
It was game changing.
By the time we would start to compose the scenes, or begin staging, choices were not made from “getting the right blocking” or “I think my character would say it like this”. We were responding with independent knowings of a shared vision.
Tina Landau writes in “Anne Bogart ViewPoints”, “(Viewpoints) provide a structure for the artist so she can forget about structure, They are there to free her up for the much more difficult consuming task of expression of getting in touch with and communicating the stuff and the soul. They exist in the service of art.”
Over the next few weeks, I am going to share the insight I gained by these explorations and not only how it pertains to collaborative performance making, but how I implement these lessons in my day to day, bridging the divide between my meaning making mind and the actual world around me. How it has widened my perspective simply with curiosity about the relationship of shape and space.
Until soon….
See you at the next threshold,
xo
Kirstin
