The Epimethean: Wednesday, 2-2-11

Wednesday, 2-2-11

So today was Watering Hole, and the final performance of my beautiful flamingo. We spent a good bit of time getting dressed and warmed up in smaller studios, and then once directed, we were to go out as our animals, explore the hallway, and enter the large Studio A (or the Checco) which was set up as the titular Watering Hole. Matt and Ingrid (Barbara wasn’t here today) had created a wild-animal-friendly environment, collecting food that we’d brought in and hiding or scattering it, as well as moving furniture and stair-units and gym-mats until the studio basically looked like an animal playground. There were also jungle sounds playing on the speakers.

So with wild animals everywhere and mysterious food and objects, there was plenty to look at. The way I figured, flamingos are social creatures with or without their flock, and since flamingos don’t typically cohabitate with many other animals, everyone was a potential friend or enemy. I therefore wasn’t particularly shy at first, but quickly formed endowments based on the reactions I got from other animals. For instance, when I approached the lion (Michael McGuire) he instantly began to growl and roar at me. Not flamingo-friendly. I quickly learned to give the baboons a wide birth as well. What was cool about this was how I went in with a certain set of expectations, or lack of expectations, and then altered those ideas based on the input I ended up getting. If Michael’s lion had been friendly, I wouldn’t have run off squawking. If Kyle Selig’s condor hadn’t spread his wings at me to get me to back off, I might have thought of him as a potential friend. That’s one of the key acting things to take away from this exercise: to keep the acting fresh, the character will necessarily go into a scene with a particular set of expectations, have some of those expectations turned on their heads, and must then form new opinions based on the new information that has been received.

Staying in character as the animal for a little over an hour was challenging, both physically and mentally. I kept checking in with my mask to make sure I was facially active as the flamingo. Even if I have a beak over my nose and mouth, I still make sure to wear a dopey flamingo grimace. Humans tend to communicate through the face first and let their face inform their body language, whereas animals tend to do the opposite, so cleaving to a particular mask for the animal is an effective way of keeping the physicality specific and strong.

During times of rest, I found it significantly easier to balance on one leg with my eyes closed than the first time I tried it. I guess I’ve been improving with practice. I still had to switch legs every so often, but that’s acceptable since flamingos actually do that. Though I think the part of my costume I’m still least happy with is the wings, they worked well enough and kept me aware of my body, as well as helping to achieve the general body shape of the flamingo. If we were continuing with our animals I’d probably look at changing the grips on them; my hands were cramping up painfully today. They were nice though because if something brushed my wing, I could feel it instantly and reacted accordingly.

Eventually, the predators were told to stalk their prey, and then to bring their prey down (with the care and consideration due to fellow performers). I wasn’t sure if anyone was going to think I was worth the trouble, considering how much scrawny neck and leg there is on a flamingo compared to the amount of meat. Then again, I was pink and defenseless. A baboon (Josh Buckwald) took me down and feasted on my corpse.

So that was the end of my flamingo, and the end of the first part of Animal Projects. The next task is to transform our animals into human characters based on our animals. I’m very excited for that. I’m especially interested in using some of the resonator work we’ve been practicing in my Voice/Alexander for my flamingo character, who shall hereafter be named Florence until I decide on a different name. He should use a high-up resonator to make him sound fragile and innocent. Though I don’t want to go too innocent or child-like with it, because I think Florence will have quite a high and cultured opinion of himself. Of course, these are all very preliminary ideas and are therefore entirely subject to change. Expectations were made to be flipped and assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups. But that’s where I am with it right now. Can’t wait to see where it ends up.

Oh hey: pictures!