Day 7: Relaxation and Breathing

Today I had rehearsal for the staged reading, Ouroborro, I am directing for the advanced playwriting class. It is an awesome group of extremely intelligent women who are also my friends so I was not intimated going into rehearsal. Unfortunately, the rehearsal process was extremely short because I would have loved to have these conversations and tried some of the exercises in the rehearsal room. I think a lot can be learned from observation and from trying to explain the work to someone else. While I am no expert on these techniques, I would have been interested doing one of the Linklater exercises by reading directly from the text.

The first set of exercises is on relaxation and breathing. She starts off by saying that the voice is sensitive to any feeling of unease. The basic feeling of fear triggers the defense mechanisms, which creates tension (especially in the neck and shoulders). This was a good reminder, but something I find very difficult to avoid. Telling someone not to be nervous, in turn, typically increases their nerves. I often find myself wanting to fast forward and just get to the point where I will no longer be nervous (i.e. after the presentation, interview, speech). Anyone have any tips of how they avoid feelings of uneasiness? Leave it in the comments below!

She then goes into detail about volume and pushing your voice (to fill a theatre) or quieting your voice (in a studio). While none of this applied to me directly, it did remind me of one of the the unique challenges of being a stage manager. There are moments, such as in a rehearsal room or technical rehearsal, where you need to be able to quiet a room. However, there are other times when you need to be quiet such as backstage or when calling cues because there are audience members sitting right next to you (as I did for Serpentine Pink- I sat right between the audience members where the red circle is in the image on the right). For the first example, you have to be aware of not pushing yourself to the point where your yelling at everyone (use your diaphragm). For the second, you have to be loud enough for your board operators to hear you, but also do your best not to distract the audience around you. In the case of Serpentine Pink, there was nothing I could do to make it so no audience member heard me. However, I did my best to speak quietly, but to also over articulate to make it easy for my board operators.

Exercises: Relaxation and Breathing

Overview of exercise: The first step is to lie on the floor on your back and bend the knees up toward the ceiling. Let the shoulders spread and try to ease them into the floor. Now become aware of the spine and imagine the back the back lengthening along the floor. Allow the head to lengthen out of the back. Now shake the wrists, elbows, and move the head back and forth. Tense the chin and release it. Say these steps out loud because saying it actually helps your muscles react. Step two is to put your hands on the bottom of the rib cage, breath in through the nose, feel the ribs opening out. Work on pushing all the air out of the lungs, and wait until until you feel the muscles having to move before breathing in (a very similar idea to Linklater). Next breathe in slowly, then breathe out slowly to ten counts. Work on this for about 15 minutes. Continue breathing all the way around and give a small sigh of "ER" with a slight "H" in front of the vowel. Progress to vowels such as "AH" and "AY and "I" before practicing with a piece of poetry or even Shakespeare. Roll over to side and stand up. Grab a stool or chair and get ready to work with your head.

Head: Drop your head forward and back and side to side. Roll your head around. Experiment tensing up your neck and chin and then relaxing. Feel the freedom in your head. Give a small head roll and then hold it still. Notice how this feels.

Shoulders: Lift your shoulders up and drop them. Repeat it a few times to again get the idea of tension and relaxation in your body.

Breathing: These exercises can be done either sitting down or standing up. The first is to your arms above your head and breathe in slowly through your nose. Open your mouth and feel the need to breath in and in again, and slowly take it in and out in the same way. Repeat this two or three times. The second one is to put the back of your hand on your ribs with your elbows and ribs looses as possible. Breath in for three counts, hold and check neck position. Open mouth and breath out for ten counts.Gain awareness of the muscles between the ribs controlling the air because these are the muscles you want to stimulate. When you are ready increase the count to fifteen.

Then do the same exercise from above (with the "ER, "AH", and "AY" ) excepting standing up. Then explore working with text. Then she has you explore swinging your arms while working with working with sound and then adding text.

Reflection: Overall, I really enjoyed these exercises. While they are not exactly Linklater's activity I did notice a lot of overlap. One of my biggest problems is how much tension I hold in my neck and shoulders. Working with the head and shoulder activities were very beneficial in getting me to truly relax. She also believes in the impulse to breathe in again which is something Linklater also believes. A lot of her exercises (or steps in the exercises) were extremely repetitive. She has you do them lying down, sitting up, and standing up. I think it was most beneficial starting lying on the floor at first. I associate lying down with sleeping most often, which automatically makes it easier to relax. I think it was also beneficial doing it standing up because I felt centered and more grounded then I did sitting down. I think I need to continue working on my voice while sitting down because a lot of time stage managers are sitting down in the rehearsal room.

Until tomorrow,

Chelsea

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