Old School

I'm preparing to move and in going through old papers and the like, I found this and thought it was interesting. Thought I would share. Jewel Walker was a professor of theatre, has written, directed and performed in numerous plays and trained generations of professional actors, including, Ted Danson and Holly Hunter.

-Gregg

Notes by Jewel Walker on Movement For Actors:

An Actor should be strong and flexible; should have agility balance and endurance. These are the foundation upon which expressiveness can be built

Strength is the most important and neglected brick in the actor's foundation

An actor must be physically brave on stage, even daring

The most expressive part of the actor is his trunk

Anytime you make not getting hurt the focus of the lesson, you will get a lot of injuries

Training has never caused anyone to become an actor

Everything onstage is what it seems to be

Whatever you have done to reach the level where you are will keep you at that level if you continue to do it

People make a difference exercises do not

No problem is ever solved, but they disappear when you create bigger problems

The theatre is not about acting

Actors need to be able to express the dual nature of human beings: feet in the mud, head in the stars

The only value in learning lies in its power to move us forward

Whatever we think causes anything is not the cause

Teaching must address the student to the work, never the work to the student

There is no power to any important question that has any power; the power is in the question

The great actor is not a slightly better good actor

Personally, I find this video fascinating. Fascinating in a way a car crash is fascinating. Leave it to a pop icon the likes of Lady Gaga to tackle the hard questions. Namely- What's sexier- Disability or Death?

-Gregg

Beat Shiver Tick & Shake

I've been doing a lot of research on The Beat poets of the 50's for a project I'm working on and found two things that I thought related- one from Tamar Rogoff the other by Jack Kerouack. Both of these fell out of a notebook I was looking in. The other day Tamar was talking about how she choreographs: how 80% of the piece comes to her almost immediately, and the remaining 20% reveals itself slowly to her over the process. Both of these pieces reveal something about the artistic process and I just wanted to share.

-Gregg

Belief & Technique For Modern Prose

Jack Kerouack

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy

2. Submissive to everything, open, listening

3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house

4. Be in love with yr life.

5. Something that you feel will find its form

6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

7. Blow as deep as you want to blow

8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

9. The unspeakable visions of the individual

10. No time for poetry but exactly what is

11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest

12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you

13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

14. Like Proust be an old tea head of time

15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monologue

16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea

19. Accept loss forever

20. Believe in the holy contour of life

21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better

23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

24. No fear or shame in the quality of yr experience, language and knowledge

25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it

26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

27. In Praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure coming in from under crazier the better

29. You're a Genius all the time

30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored and Angeled in Heaven

Directions for the pas de deux between Ballerina and Dr. A

By Tamar Rogoff

1. Sitz bones over heels
2. Use your breath
3. Elbows lifted
4. Relax your face
5. Shoulder blades wide
6. Offer you hand
7. Wait for her
8. Whole body forward
9. Catch
10. Keep her on point
11. Give her space
12. Give her support
13. Allow her forward
14. Help her up gentley
15. Look her in the eye
16. Breathe
17. Breathe
18. Think up to go Down
19. Let her come to you
20. Keep arms in their sockets
21. Strong arm/ become the bar
22. Sternum to Sternum
23. Not to close
24. Release to her waist
25. Above the tutu
26. One and a quarter
27. Breathe
28. Breathe
29. Think up to go down
30. Keep your eyes on her
31. Good job, you’ve got it now
32. You’re ready
33. go