Voice and Body II

Exercise 2.53: Sssh, fffh: step forwards, put the body weight fully onto the right leg, push the abdominals, ’ssssss…’ relax the abdominals immediately at the end, and let ‘the sound go’. Change to the left leg. Variate with ‘ffffh!’

Exercise 2.54: The fat cow[163]: standing in the samurai position, arms hanging to the sides, upper body raised. Tilt the pelvis back by breathing in, and a long breath out by tilting the pelvis slowly and moving it forwards with force. When movement and breathing are well co-ordinated, release a very deep ‘muuuuh!’ or ‘maaaah!’ or moooh!’. Feel like a fat cow, urinating onto the fresh green grass….

Exercise 2.55: To speak in ‘the mask’ (the face). Walk with a straight spine. Recite your text continuously, with a medium loud voice, and imagine the sound is streaming out of the nose/ the face as a mask/ or the temples, and focus on these body parts when you speak.

Exercise 2.56: King, king![164] Walk around with a straight spine. Focus on your occiput. Imagine there is a bird sitting there, pecking into your skull and making a very high and sharp sound: ‘king! king!’

Exercise 2.57: Focus on the forehead. The ‘mouth’ is there.

Exercise 2.58: Voice impulse training with jinai. (The physical side of the exercise was given in part I, exercises 44–47). Start with shoulder impulses (forwards, backwards, upwards), the pelvis, the chest, the arms. Concentrate for a long time on the kicks. (They should be done forwards, bending the knee and pushing the jinai forwards in a straight line by the sole of the foot, as if to open a door). The teacher must give feedback if the voice impulses sound open. (Problems arise when physical and voice impulse do not start together, or the student is too eager and tenses the voice.)

Exercise 2.59: Sit on the floor, speak close to an imaginary baby, calm it, make it sleep (by always repeating the same text). Load your voice with softness and emotion. Switch focus: try to keep a wild beast at bay, or speak to somebody far away, calling back. Load your voice with decision, try to convince it. Improvisation.

Exercise 2.60: Improvisation for two actors. Kneel or squat on the floor, with a knife in front of you. Speak to the knife, sharpen it with your voice, give it orders to kill, to take revenge, etc. See B, as Kreon, coming closer. Speak to him in the voice, stop him from coming closer. Develop a scene from the exercise.

Exercise 2.61:[166] Speak with the partner’s hand. A and B stand face to face. A lifts a hand up, palm forward. B recites his text continuously and focuses it onto the partner’s hand, ‘speaking to the hand’. (The hand symbolises something B absolutely desires to reach). A reacts to the intonation and reacts. If the hand is close, the text is quiet and intimate, and if the partner steps back and the distance between the hand and voice increases, the voice grows louder. B tries to pull the voice close to himself (as if to swallow it), by using emotional load in his voice. A must listen carefully, to hear and understand the message in the timbre of B’s voice, and to react and to offer some resistance. Difficult exercise.

Exercise 2.62: Emotional load of the voice. Stand in the samurai position, back straight, neck straight. Speak with someone close by, far away, on your side, or behind. Find an aim, whatever you want to reach from the person (she must come or go, you want to cut her into pieces, to shower her with flowers…) Load your text with emotion.

Exercise 2.63: A phone call from abroad, group exercise. The members of the group move constantly through space with sounds and songs as a disturbing cacophony. A stands at one end of the space (in Rio), with B on the other (in Sydney). Both turn their backs on each other. With their voices, they try to reach each other and communicate on the phone about something very important to both. When A stops speaking, B answers, all through the disturbed line.

Exercise 2.64: Oppositions[167]. (Continuation of the movement and voice exercises from part I). Choose a movement and add a sound as opposition: A soft round movement accompanied by a sharp voice, etc.

Exercise 2.65: Outside exercises[168]: in the forest, on the hills, in the rain and storm: Try to call each other, communicate etc. Improvisations.