BRING IT!

Another one stolen from Martha Graham, "Follies of God"..

"You have to be terribly bold--almost reckless--to create anything that will reach people, change them, open their eyes and their minds. For a number of years now, I've noticed that people auditioning for my school or my company come in and essentially perform a tribute to me, thinking this is the way into my class and into my heart. They are quickly proven wrong: I want to know what you've seen and how you have threaded it through your own experience, your own mind, your own heart, your own history. I want to see what the works of all the dancers you've seen has become as it trickled down through your being. Don't just replicate what you think is fashionable or acceptable or, God forbid, what you think is the greatest. What you think is the greatest right this minute, I promise you, you will laugh at in two years, or less. You will keep changing, or you should keep changing.

Strike out on your own. Read, look, and listen, and ask yourself, How is this or that speaking to me? What can I make of it? What personal footnote might I add to this piece or to this time in which I live? We leave our mark by taking--as if it were a baton--from our predecessors, and then making it wholly our own.

I find today no one making anything their own. There are too many homages and tributes and replicas. You ask me about suicide, but I think more in terms of murder, because we are killing so many chances for new voices and new ideas and new angles to come to fruition." -MG

This is a terrific reminder to be giving everything in your art, your expression. There is no time to half step. I find myself right now, packing, listening to music with the windows open. Wind rushing in, new tunes I have never heard before, my mind accepting/analyzing.. Blogging :)

I must continue to immerse myself, surround myself with brilliance- like-minded folks with courageous hearts. Jimmy DeVita told me while I was working my Hotspur, "Paint with your heart.." I really appreciated hearing that. Use what you are made of, bring it to the front of your work. Craft new things, then bring that to your work. Just please, by all that we are and ever will be, keep bringing it. There is not time enough to not, ya know? 

Wear Yourself Out

"Something you need to understand: Those who are engaged in a satisfying, full, adventurous sexual life are those least likely to talk about it, speculate upon it, analyze it, seek to understand it. They are living it. They are exhausted by it. They are grateful for it. They tend, I think, to protect it, like a secret that someone else may poke around looking for, tasting, using.

Those who are engaged in an acting life--using all of their skills, all of their emotions, working well with other fully realized people, are those least likely to talk about it, analyze it, theorize upon it.

The thing is--avoid theory and embrace experience. Run from rumination and throw yourself into expression.

Wear yourself out doing until you no longer can.

And when you no longer can, have enough discretion to not speak indiscriminately about all of those with whom you shared yourself.

Share just enough to urge others to wear themselves out."

Keep going, keep doing, keep moving. Teaching is great, but only if it is intertwined with practice.. I can't let myself get to heady about things :)

Define Yourself; Stay In The Moment

"We all become defined by our work. We are defined by how we do it and by how well we do it. But these definitions follow those we give to ourselves, and these definitions can be as deadly as a prison sentence if we aren't careful. This is why we have to be tough--ruthless, really--about what we are willing to do and by how diligent we are going to be in getting it right and earning our place in the world.

There has always been the tendency on the part of the untalented ambitious--a hardy and nefarious group--to find a way to be a part of the artistic working. You have to avoid this. You have to earn your place; you cannot merely create a place for yourself by being devoted to a particular art and being vocal about your homage.

Everything becomes cheapened, because suddenly you have people redefining what you love the most. 

Define yourself first. Long before anyone else will know you even exist, you will have decided how you shall be seen, so define yourself as serious and dedicated and selective. Define yourself as patient and detailed. Define yourself as an artist. Then wait to see if you've been correct." -EG

This one is pretty great. Hold yourself accountable for the work you produce- never half step. There truly isn't time for that. We must press, push, interrogate, investigate, rifle through all the baggage that might get in the way of being in the moment, right here, creating. 

The Voice, Specifically

This one from "Artistic Suicide" got me thinking... Especially after working one of my students musical theatre pieces:

"My particular obsession is with the voice. Everyone on the face of the earth has not only the voice by which they communicate words and sounds, but they have what I can only call a psychic or spiritual voice, which effects the timbre and the quality of the sounds they emit, not to mention the stories they tell. One’s voice is the means by which your soul gets let out to wander and play and finds friends to play with—if I were to put it on a really remedial level. The voice is not only auditory—it is literary. These very words I’m saying to you are coming through the voice that is working for me today. The cultivation and the husbanding of the voice is a lifelong habit and requirement. This is why I read and re-read things. I want to see how the writer got his soul around a particular obsession and then chose to share it through words orchestrated on a page. This is why I can’t be in a silent house for very long. I need music, so I can try to understand how composers and musicians transmitted a story through the tools at their command. This is why I become obsessed with singers, who are among our greatest storytellers. The name of the game is communication—not art. Art happens if you happen to be an artist. It cannot be forced. One can’t work at being an artist. One only works and prays that things work well. Ella Fitzgerald never got in the way of a song—it poured through her and rolled toward your feet like a warm wave. Hers was a seductive, trusting voice: She knew you would wait for it to wash up over your feet and ankles. Barbra Streisand is a great artist, but she has no trust: There are too many tricks and theatrical gestures that she feels she needs to keep you listening. Try listening to Streisand all afternoon. It won’t work. I can last about an hour, and then I’m tired. I’m tired for her and I’m tired for myself. Jo Stafford had a haunting quality—and nothing else. There wasn’t an actress inside of her—an artist—to throw the story, like a javelin of chords, across a wide path. Stafford worked a small piece of property, and it was nice, but it was small. If you were to somehow place one’s most comfortable chair in the most extraordinary chapel, a building with the most remarkable acoustics and the grandest organ on earth, and if you were to wear your most comfortable clothes and stretch back and desire the most organic and the clearest means of telling a story through song, you would find someone like Kaye Ballard. Kaye Ballard can sing in a basement or on Broadway or on a gaudy television program, and it is crystal clear and confident: It is a master storyteller telling you a story. She never gets in the way of her songs either. She doesn’t just work a big piece of property: She lifts you very high over it all so you get a great view. I have listened to her on albums with composers in the room, and they can tell me what she’s doing; what the instrument is doing. This I don’t know or understand. I’m here to take my particular obsession—my story—and take the words that fly down to me from some mysterious place and land on my pale judgment and make them move and shimmer and communicate the way those chords and beautiful sounds do. I told you I’m moved by strings in music, and Kaye Ballard has strings in her voice, which is to say emotion. No matter how funny she can be, there is something huge at stake when she sings. There is talent on the line, and it’s flying high and its hunting for the hungry audience that needs her."

It seems to me that with enough exposure to anything, one begins to develop a taste, sight or hearing for their art form. I was told once, while having a rough voice session, that my coach Susan Sweeney had a extremely refined palette for the human voice. They likened it to tasting a fine whiskey- only the experienced connoisseur could detect the subtle tones, smoothness and fragrances of a single barrel variety. Analysis of human behavior is so damn interesting :)

More time.

"When I was young, I never thought about the manner in which I approached the writing. I just wrote. I was like the natural singer who goes out, opens his mouth, and shares the song, having no idea that the instrument might not be used properly, that damage might be taking place. One simply sings. I did this with words and characters and locales. I seemed to have no limits. I believed--as the young always will--that there was enough time and enough opportunities to continue writing, to patch over the mistakes, to repair any damage done.

I told you earlier about approaching words as if they were the Eucharist, or the  first breast in the hands of an amorous boy, and I think this honor, this respect, is necessary for good work to come. We not only have to approach the words and the work with this valuable honor, but we must do the same with ourselves: We must take care of ourselves. This I did not do, and the price is steep. We must husband our minds and our backs and our legs and our eyes. We must keep reading and looking and caring--and seeing to it that our fellow writers and actors and artists and musicians have us as their audience.

There is so much to do to get it right, and so little time.

Time was one of the few things I never wished for, and what I most wish I had more of now. There is nothing, I don't think, that I wouldn't trade or give away for a little bit more time. Strong legs. Clear eyes. 

And the ability to honor and burnish the words." TW

How time flies! I look at the calendar and the big three-oh approaches  Sure, I'm still in my twenties- young and reckless- but what does entering this new decade mean? Yes, it is only a number, but it seems to me that each moment is more and more precious as time goes by. How best spent, this life? Making moments? Making love? Making cures? There is so much to consider.

Miller

"It is not enough to plant one's thoughts or emotions on a page or two or on some stages throughout the world: One has to be planted in the hearts of those you love, and you pray to God that you are carried in the hearts of those special people whose safety you would like to hold even when you have left the earth." Arthur Miller said this in regards to Tenessee Williams work.

Food for thought.

Kazan Response #1

"Groups are launching pads, I think. It's comforting to find a group of actors and directors and writers who gather together and form a sort of family and talk about what they want to be when they grow up. They fight and they make up; they fall in and out of love; they go to the theatre and to movies and argue about what is good and what isn't. Ultimately, they produce some plays, and, as with the Group, they are based on a shared philosophy of sorts about life and literature and politics. Ultimately, however, the better ones outgrow this infantilization, this having a mommy figure and a daddy figure and a nanny and an older brother to hold your hand and take your side. You break free and take what you've learned and take new risks with new people. That is how, I think, an artist in the theatre grows. Now, a lot of actors just want to make sure they have steady work, so they'll sign up with a group and be a member and do whatever is asked of them. You become your choices." Elia Kazan

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Interesting. EVERYTHING you do, makes you up. From your breakfast, routine, language, relationships... 

I am a believer in that one should work with everyone, especially when beginning to practice anything: in groups, duets, solo. Discover what each environment offers to your process, what you produce when in that particular situation, or what another person brings out in you. Stay specific on just a couple elements that you can track and note or remember for yourself.  Know thyself. Stay specific. Keep growing.

Recently, I find for myself with music thriving creatively when working alone in my cave- though the spurts of brilliance are few and far between.. hard to concentrate and continue energy flow. In big open spaces I tend to want to be more grand, fill the space with affection/declaration.

Man, I love creating things. Keep going, keep observing- keep making it real.

"This will sound very optimistic and simple coming from me, especially after my diatribe, but if you are good, really good, people find out and show up, and you find an audience. I also mean a real audience, not an audience of friends or industry paper. People who don't know or love you or owe you money or a favor: People who care about the theatre and want to see how you contribute to it." EK