Linking

Last Thursday was World Theatre Day and several local theatre companies organized a set of staged readings. I was busy enacting scenes and bringing full scripts to life in front of an audience with a limited amount of preparation. Since I had had a brief break from performing I was able to appreciate the experience in a new way and gain tremendous insight. My first insight was how naturally my body reacted to being onstage again. I must admit, I felt a little rusty, but the years of training and practice did pay off. So often when I am leading sessions on Presentation Skills, I am asked how one can read information off of a page and stay connected to an audience. Yes, there are tricks, like marking your place with your finger as you go and giving yourself permission to pause, but what will help you the most is PRACTICE. Practice speaking written text out loud, and communicating your message, even if it's just to a close friend or partner.

My second realization was how strongly linked the craft of acting and presenting are. This wasn't a new realization but a confirmation of a thought I have had for a long while. I'm still formulating how I can articulate and communicate this more coherently. In the mean time, check out this wonderful workshop on Lecturing by Patrick Winston of MIT. If you are interested in presenting, don't be deterred by the focus on lecturing, so many of the principles apply to both.

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58703/winston1.html

"Smile, Your On-Camera"

Last week, I had an explosive class. Literally. We fled from our on-camera session, escaping the billows of burnt hotdog smelling smoke. Myself and the participants waited outside in the cold contemplating the challenge of seeing ourselves on camera. I overhear a comment from one participant to the other, "It's like hearing your voice played back on a tape recorder. It doesn't even sound like me!" Although slightly intimidating for some, the idea of being able to communicate with students live is an inticing one.

As I browse my favourie home decorating site (yes, that's right, I admit to having a favourite home decorating site) her blogs have now become little videos. Finally, I get a chance to see who this woman is, hear the timbre of her voice, see the items she is discussing. A part of me misses the mystery of only having her words, but the other part of me feels more included and connected. The quality of the "voice" changes somewhat.

Waiting outside on this damp February day, we discovered that the cause of the smoke had been a lit firecracker under a seat in the auditorium next to ours. The professor was giving an exam and it appeared that an unprepared student was getting very creative.

As the smoke cleared I returned to my computer and took another look at the site including the video:

http://www.tracyporter.com/blog.php

It's worth it, I thought, getting more comfortable with the camera.

Slow down for Obama!

In every session I have led over the past six months, one name comes up over and over: Obama! How exciting that there is finally a public leader who can inspire and move us with his words. My next door neighbor and a participant in a recent workshop passed on this link:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080222.wxlspeech22/BNStory/lifeMain/home

The article points out that Obama's word per minute speech rate is quite a bit slower than most politicians. Slowing down, as the writer and analysts point out, may help to get the message across, but don't forget to watch the excerpt they have included. Obama's ease, confidence, passion and conviction are felt in each phrase, word, sound and syllable. His warm and open smile bursts out at perfectly timed intervals, drawing us in to his humanity.

Slowing down will definitely help when you give your next presentation, but only if you breathe in and experience each word, each phrase, each listener. So give yourself time to try it out.

Canada's National Voice Intensive

Where to begin? I was fortunate to have spent the past week with some of the faculty from Canada's National Voice Intensive. The work was challenging, exciting, revealing and downright fun! Judith Koltai reminded us that some aspects of the body are well designed and some are not so well designed. In light of that fact, we "oiled" a small segment of our spine with a pelvic tilt and felt the rest of our bones fall into place. Ian Raffel shared his ideas on rhetoric and we were all able to tell a great story about sixty pretty women. Dale Genge, from Studio 58, got everyone up and moving while exploring Henry V's "Now entertain conjecture of a time..."-- I'm still sad that I missed that one. And David Smukler? Well, he reminded us that our form is a house, and within that house is a need, and as that need is triggered it becomes a thought, and as that thought is processed it travels through a channel until it begins to resonate, and as we resonate we then articulate, but most importantly our voice is your response.

If that doesn't make any sense, send in your application for Canada's National Voice Intensive.

http://www.theatre.ubc.ca/vi/

Bravery

Seventy-five high school drama students in a small theatre. Sandwiched between their early morning technical rehearsal and their afternoon run-through, I had the privelege to deliver a two-hour workshop on Voice. Some of them definitely did not want to be there. Some maintained a steely concentration that allowed them to focus on the material for their own benefit, others went through the motions because that's what they "should" do, and still others were much too pre-occupied by the woman or man standing in front of them. The challenge of being heard was multi-layered. Physically the task of enabling them to hear my voice, was a challenge to say the least, then the idea of communicating a message was an even greater challenge. To allow them to move through their own fears of being embarrassed, doing something different, trying a new way of relating that may not be be deemed "cool" was a mighty endeavor. I encouraged them to participate, bravely, and speak from their hearts.

This morning a faculty member was experimenting with gesture. "I'm not good at that." she stated. The rest of the class refuted her claim. "Yes, you are, you just did it!" And she had.

At night, in the few moments between doing dishes and preparing for the next day, I pick up "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi. Nafisi asks her students how novels can relate and inform their lives. I ask myself how this book can relate to my life. It is teaching me bravery and passion around my profession. To allow myself to believe in the transfomative power of voice work, even in it's smallest gesture.

At the end of the workshop for the high school students, a young man with pale blond hair and a red toque came up to me and gave me a hug. "Where did you learn all that?" he asked. He had been brave and spoken from his heart in front of the group. Somehow, despite the noise, I had been heard.

Vocal Yoga?

So I finally had a chance to get back to my yoga routine. Twenty minutes was all that I found, wandering between the dishes, email and a fast approaching bedtime. I wanted to kiss those twenty minutes when they were over. My body felt more relaxed than it had in ages and it was as if I had polished all the rough edges off of my voice. While working with a student last week, we were opening up the rib case (cage) with some gentle lengthening. "This is just like yoga!!!" She exclaimed. "It is yoga." I replied.

I did a little search and found that, sure enough, someone is actually leading coarses in Vocal Yoga. She even has a nice and simple description of Fight or Flight's association with breath. Check it out if you get a chance:

http://www.vocalyoga.com/vocalyoga/breathing.html

I'm not one for selling products but if you need a quick twenty-minute guided yoga workout, get ahold of either Suzanne Deason's Stress Relief Yoga for Beginners or Patricia Walden's PM portion of the AM/PM Yoga for Beginners and ease your way into a blissful sleep.

What I didn't get for Christmas

To prepare for my graduate defence, I was required to read what felt like four hundred books, consisting of both theorectic texts and plays. Like any sensible student, I put off reading the majority of them until the final six months. Bleary eyed, I became more excited about the little red check marks used to tick off the title of each text than the process of reading. There was one exception-- the voice books.

Huddled uncomfortably in a wooden framed library chair overlooking the snowcovered limestone walls, I started to feel my breath in the same full and easy way I had experienced in my voice classes. The more I read about the breath, the more I experienced it in my body. Since then, I have relied on books on breath and voice to keep me sane whenever I have been unable to attend a voice class.

In the chaos of this holiday season, traveling back and forth between relatives and attending celebration after celebration, I realized that what I should have asked for was a breath book. The one I am most curious about is called, "Free Your Breath, Free Your Life" by Dennis Lewis. I haven't had a chance to pick it up yet, so let me know if you get to it before I do.

In the meantime, here's a great little exercise to keep you busy, or rather to slow you down:

http://www.authentic-breathing.com/straw-breathing.htm

Happy New Year!!