Fake It Until You Make It

I started taking an acting class the other week. It’s one of those cute little funky classes put on by Mt. Airy Learning Tree. There was this one exercise that we did at the beginning. It was a variation on walking around the room coming in and out of the center of it. At a certain point, you would stop and face the closest person to you, taking them in with your breath, or at least that’s what you were supposed to do symbolically.

The variations kept happening. After every iteration, you would walk a little faster, until you were literally running. Sometimes you said nothing, but sometimes you would give the person a name that you thought that would suite them. Then you finally said your own name after each time until you have introduced yourself to everyone.

We then each picked two names and created a body expression for that name. Like, for Norma, I would wave my hands like in a dream sequence. It almost looked like I was Javert when he jumped off the bridge after Valjean surprisingly let him go unharmed.

So using that body motion, and a Kick to the side for this other kid Ben, I had conversations with other people. All we could do is say their name while giving our motion. It was pretty fun to see how the whole thing evolved. You could change your intonation as to express emotion or variations in thought.

There was an interesting tidbit that the teacher said after the exercise. He said that you should examine what happened to see what people thought of your presence. What kind of expressions did they use for your name? Did they use your name at all? If not, then what does that say about your presence?

It was interesting, because I think that I was the only one whose name was never used. I did feel a little weird there. I mean it was a completely new situation, and it seemed like people there knew what they were doing, or at least knew more than I.

At a time where I am feeling a lot more confidant than I have been in the past, I still know that I have a long way to go. Supposedly, next week, we get to work on presence. Maybe I’ll learn enough to fake it until I make it.