Reading Response: The Second Circle - Body

Between reading this excerpt and the exercises we've been doing in class this week, I've been much more aware of my body and the way I carry myself. I would say the biggest habit I have created is holding tension in my chest and "over-compensating" by pulling my shoulders too far back, which forces my spine out of alignment and causes me to pull my hips back as well. I also have a tendency to lock my knees. My shoulder placement, in particular, is what I have tried to be more aware of this week. The segment about the "beautiful body" as defined by today's media interests me, because I think it really affects people today, especially women. As the text suggested, I found a candid photo of myself and made observations. I noticed the same habit with my shoulders, which contributes to a rigid spine, and how close my feet were together. The placement of my feet suggest that I am "diminishing" myself by taking up less space, according to the text. This reminds me of a poem I read that talked about the different ways men and women take up space in their every day lives. The example the poem used was the way men and women sit on public transportation. Men have more of a tendency to spread out comfortably - knees apart, arms rested on the seat back - and take up space, while women will sit with their knees tight together or crossed and hands in their lap - taking up as little space as possible. Women are expected to be small and pretty and conform to standards imposed by the media. I think this connects to our lesson because it influences how women hold themselves daily, and I absolutely think it affects me too. Another thing that came to mind was last week when I was approached by a stranger and asked for direction. The text suggests that the reason I was approached was because I was in Second Circle, or at least the most Second Circle person available, yet at that moment I was completely unaware of this.

Reading Response: The Second Circle - Presence

.Our reading this week was focused on what Patsy Rodenburg has defined as "the Second Circle." What is the Second Circle? It is a state of utmost intimacy, connectedness, and presence. This reading is specifically focused on presence. Over and over we hear performers described as having "it," and can never fully define what "it" is. Patsy Rodenburg tells us that it is simply the act of being in Second Circle. I particularly liked the quote "Presence allows experience." As actors, if we are not fully present in our work, how can the audience completely experience the story we are telling them? They can't. Rodenburg also states that this presence is "immediately felt and seen through the eyes: the windows of the soul." To me, this is of utmost importance. I was taught that to give a great performance you need three E's: eyes, energy, and enthusiasm. Performers with expressive, alive eyes are captivating, and why? They are present and it is literally shining out of them through their eyes. In my opinion, dead eyes equals a dead performance. Having just played Juliet, I really liked the example involving Romeo and Juliet's first moment of connection. Imagine playing one of those characters out of Second Circle. It just wouldn't work. The entire plot stems from that first moment of total connection and presence with each other. One of my biggest goals as I worked on that show was to keep myself very emotionally open to the audience so they would feel engaged in and connected to the story. I was very aware of the energy radiating between me and them, and it is that constant exchange - the mutual give and take that puts us in second circle, as is described in the Winston Churchill quote: "We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give." After learning about Second Circle, and now being able to put a name to it, I know I have experienced those moments before and it is something I will always strive for, because I wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Rodenburg that Second Circle is where great performances live.

Royal Heart - Andrea Gibson

Voice Recipe:

1. Tempo - Gibson begins the poem very slowly and deliberately. As the poem continues, Andrea picks up the tempo until it is rapid and almost desperate. At the very end, it slows to about the original tempo.

2. Rhythm - Various important words of the poem are stressed, which shapes the rhythm. Often these words are near the end of a sentence and the beginning of the sentence will build up to the word most emphasized then the rest of the sentence peters out from there.

3. Articulation - Gibson's articulation is clear enough that you can make out every word said, but in my opinion could be crisper. Andrea was born in Maine and later lived in New Orleans, and I notice a bit of a dialect, which influences articulation. In this particular case, r's are slurred or dropped at times.

4. Pronunciation - Andrea pronounces "world" almost as if it is two syllables as opposed to one, and "bury" as "barry." You can hear Southern influence when Gibson pronounces "sweetheart" because the end is dropped making it sound like "sweet-hah," and the same is true for many other words.

5. Pitch - Gibson's voice is neither very low or very high. It sits somewhere in the middle and hovers around the same three (or so) notes but occasionally drops lower, usually at the end of a sentence.

6. Volume - It is hard to make an accurate claim about volume because Gibson is speaking into a microphone. With the mike, Gibson is speaking loud enough to be heard clearly and seems balanced with the mike (not too loud).

7. Quality - There is a harsher sound when Gibson pronounces the short "A" sound, but a longer, more fluid sound on vowels like "O." The quality is smoother when Gibson is speaking slowly, but becomes frenetic and choppier as the tempo quickens.

8. Word choice - Word choice is instrumental in poetry, however Gibson doesn't use a particularly large vocabulary. The words selected are fairly simple and ones that most people would generally know, perhaps so the listeners can focus more on the meaning of the piece that figuring out individual words. Words used frequently include rain and love.

9. Non-verbals - Gibson consistently take audible, gasping breaths and has a slight lisp on a few s's.

Voice Recipe - Girls Who Read

 

For this assignment, we were asked to analyze someone else's voice recipe after previously analyzing our own. Much of this class will be focused on poetry, and this video jumped out at me when I saw it posted on a friend's Facebook page this week, because I immediately noticed multiple interesting things about his voice. 

1. Tempo - He really plays with tempo in this piece. Some of it is very driven and rhythmic, especially parts where he is speeding through rhyme after rhyme then suddenly slows down at the end of a line. It makes it very interesting as a listener, and slowing down certain parts can stress their importance by drawing more attention to it.

2. Rhyme - The rhyme scheme really determines the rhythm in this piece, and each time rhyme occurs, he'll emphasize that word more than the rest. Often times, he'll move through a few words very quickly, emphasize one, pause for a moment, then continue the same pattern. The rhythm is not consistent and changes frequently.

3. Articulation - Because of his dialect, not all of his consonant sounds are articulated, particularly the "t's" and "r's" since they are often dropped with a British dialect.

4. Pronunciation - The speaker has a British dialect, which mainly affects his vowel sounds. For example when he uses the word "glass," he pronounces it with a much longer "a" sound than we do with our American dialects. Other words that differ in pronunciation include "vocabulary" and "girl." 

5. Pitch - In my opinion, his voice is slightly higher than an average man's. He hovers around the same few pitches for the whole piece, never dipping distinctively lower or noticeably higher.

6. Volume - The volume is fairly consistent through the poem, however there are certain times he drops his volume a bit.

7. Quality - You can hear some resonance in his voice. It is very clear - he is not difficult to understand in spite of his accent.

8. Word Choice - In poetry in particular, word choice is vital. In this case, the word choice is probably centered around fitting the rhyme scheme. However, he shows which are most important through emphasis, like in the end when he describes "a girl with passion, wit, and dreams."

9. Non-verbals - Towards the beginning of the piece, he clicks his tongue once, but I did not pick up on any other non-verbals.