Volume 5, Number 8, September 2006

Quote From Moshe: “…movement may be necessary to all living things to enable them to form their objective exterior world, and perhaps even their objective interior world.” The Elusive Obvious, p. 20

What You See Is What They Get

Feldenkrais practitioners often seem certain that they can help any demographic that comes their way. One group of people who seem to like Feldenkrais are performers. The lessons probably remind them a great deal of many of the kinds of energy building warm-ups they’ve done in their acting, music and dance classes.

In one sense the warm-ups are similar. They draw from the same well: the increase of some kind of awareness, be it of the audience, the ensemble or the instrument, that enables someone to improve their performance. But I think many performers fail to make a distinction between Feldenkrais and energy-building.

Performers can greatly benefit from consciously understanding what they are doing in their craft and being cognizant of how the warm-ups help. It is so tempting to go through some kind of warm-up, feel different, and manifest that difference instinctually on stage without thinking too much about it. The magic warm-ups become a kind of “pink pill” which transforms a performance.

Yes, it works, but this is not mastery. An instinctual process cannot be taught to another person, only passed on like a flame with the hopes that it will “catch.” Such a process is risky, too, because if circumstances are not ideal the benefit may fail to materialize. A performer will find their wings snatched away, leaving them plummeting to the earth with no understanding of how to recover.

I’m not suggesting over-intellectualizing one’s performance-process. That’s no good either. Many are the teachers who can talk a great game about how to perform but are incapable of generating any kind of meaningful performance themselves. What I am suggesting is that we as performers use concrete understanding to improve an abstract interaction.

Let me give you an example. I am currently teaching middle-school students in a chorus. These students are really my audience. I’m not there to entertain them, but I must engage them so that I know they’re receiving what I’m presenting.

There’s an interesting phenomenon in conducting: Your students will give you exactly what you show them. If I ask them to sing a warm, round “O,” but demonstrate by singing a strained, shallow “eeww…” they’ll sing the latter. No matter what I say, I always have to model what I want.

This phenomenon goes farther than imitation. If I am lecturing to them and my focus is on the back of the room, or even on what I had for lunch, they will perceive that I am not focused on them. No matter how brilliant my ideas, I’m modelling a lack of recognition of their presence, and they’ll sit in front of me with the same sort of lack of recognition.

I may not actually know what to do about this. Many lecturers are completely unaware that their “focus” is of any importance at all. If you tell them they must change that focus, they’ll ask you how. With Feldenkrais I can answer that question.

One powerful locus of focus is in the eyes. What am I looking at? What is my level of awareness of what I’m looking at? If I regard a student in front of me, am I really seeing that student, or just a vague approximation of that student? Could I tell you what they were wearing if I left the room? Am I conscious of the change in their expression from on moment to the next?

If I recognize that I am seeing none of these things, then what? Well, there are Feldenkrais lessons that deal with the use of the eyes. There are still others that make it possible for you to support your head so that your eyes are free to move wherever they want. Doing such lessons, you begin to see more than you have in the past, and you have choices about how much you want to see at any given moment.

When your eyes remain truly engaged with the images of your students, something amazing happens: you begin a circuit between yourself and them that they feel obliged to complete. There’s something about being really seen that compels a person to look back. Have you ever found yourself unable to take your eyes off a highly charismatic person? Often the magic comes from a sense that, in their presence, you are somehow more real. They make you feel important and it would seem rude at the very least not to return the favor!

Performers on stage have a similar access to their audience, despite the existence of the “fourth wall” which keeps the viewers separate from what they are watching. Even though the audience decides that what is on stage is distinct from them, they will still respond to what they see. A performer whose posture is strained or forced will most likely engage a sympathetic straining in the viewer, in the same way that you might hear someone with phlegm in their throat and want to clear your own.

If you as a performer can increase your comfort on stage, your audience will be correspondingly more comfortable. Even more interesting, if you can choose to be more or less comfortable at any given moment on stage, you can take your audience through a similar roller-coaster ride, providing them with a more compelling experience. Many of our best performers do this all the time, but a great many of them do it “naturally” without being able to define the elements of what they are doing. This is a loss for their students and, to some extent, for these masters as well. Mastery without self-awareness is a fickle lover, and many great artists have gone mad when their abilities seemed to have left them for awhile.

The Feldenkrais Method can be a valuable tool in your growth as a lecturer, teacher or performer. Of course, at a more basic level it can also help you relate more effectively with another human being in simple conversation, or with an intimate partner. The person with increased awareness has less of a reason to make excuses about their self-percieved shortcomings and more of an opportunity to improve their passion.