Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Character through Gesture
One of the hallmarks of the work we do is an attentiveness to detail and precision, especially with regard to movement. We spend a lot of time in rehearsal crafting gestures and movements that reflect character. What that builds up to is a movement score that shares space and time with the musical score and the text--the balance of these elements is a major part of our artistic interest.
Last night's rehearsal was primarily about finding gestures for the characters we're playing. We spent time on more general things--how characters move, walk, stop, respond to the world around them--as well as specific ones, i.e. how do you choose to punctuate a piece of your text? How do you move, and where does the movement come? On the words, or between them? Over the course of a line, or sharply? How big a gesture is appropriate to the character and to the situation? And what gestures are just more interesting to watch: more surprising, funnier, more graceful?
The answers we come up with are all intuitive, based on the script, the story, the research we've done (images, sounds), and any number of random things that it would be hard to identify. But somehow they're both personal and entirely germane to the play.
Last night's rehearsal was primarily about finding gestures for the characters we're playing. We spent time on more general things--how characters move, walk, stop, respond to the world around them--as well as specific ones, i.e. how do you choose to punctuate a piece of your text? How do you move, and where does the movement come? On the words, or between them? Over the course of a line, or sharply? How big a gesture is appropriate to the character and to the situation? And what gestures are just more interesting to watch: more surprising, funnier, more graceful?
The answers we come up with are all intuitive, based on the script, the story, the research we've done (images, sounds), and any number of random things that it would be hard to identify. But somehow they're both personal and entirely germane to the play.
