A Two-Week Viewpoint Process

 Reflecting

Over the last two weeks, I’ve learned about the levels of viewpoint work through walking speed, lighting, and word-based gestures. We have worked in the BlackBox theatre and at the outside steps in between JJW and Humanities. Although I haven’t always been able to fully participate in the longer movement sessions, I still think I will be a much better actor when keeping what we’ve been taught in mind.


I found it very important to take notes on what I saw during the first viewpoints session on the 15th and felt really impacted by being in the audience. Most everyone in our class started out anxious and uncertain. During start and stop exercises, people began with polite attitudes and a consistency of turns. Then, once chaos emerged, we could follow the abstract-ness of our ideas much more smoothly. We collectively defined a lot of terms through great collaboration.


Something that impacted me a surprising amount was the difference I felt when performing outside as opposed to the BlackBox. The spot that we worked at - the lower entrance to Humanities and the stairs by the left - made me feel very nostalgic. Having the interactions with nature and other people made the space feel very open, but also empty because of the overcast weather. This made it much easier for my emotions and actions to come into fullness. They could play themselves out, mostly unrestricted.


Because I spent more time participating as an audience member rather than as an actor, I got to deeply immerse myself in the director’s perspective. I can often struggling with giving others feedback in fear of appearing negatively. However, everyone was incredibly understanding throughout and I saw people respond to feedback very quickly. Applying different filters of language - such as the softer and less descriptive diction - could allow me to create unique projects throughout the future of this course. 


There were also many smaller details that, while I didn’t notice myself when directing, I realized could have a huge effect on how people interrupted the meaning of certain gestures. On our Tuesday class, we were given the opportunity to set the stage with a specific color and word for the performers. When Osajie was directing, for example, the stage was flooded in green light. My initial response was to think of a forest or garden; something on land and in nature. But I had to adapt my thoughts to fit a very contradictory word: fish. This made me look deeper into both my core instincts that I could connect to the color, and how that mood might affect the gestures used to carry out my prompt.

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