Movement is the key to life. In fact, anything that is not moving simply doesn’t exist. Existence is defined first by movement. It is inherent in all living things, and all things are always in motion. If not, it is nothingness, which doesn’t exist. Living things move towards balance or towards chaos, at least in our Newtonian universe as we understand it. In fact, Newton’s second law of thermodynamics basically states that all moves from order to disorder. And in opposition to that all things tend to try to establish a balance or equilibrium between them and their environment.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Everything defined as existence has this characteristic of opposition. The opposition is in a constant state of trying to reach balance. If it were ever to achieve pure eternal balance, it would stop moving.

Movement is a creative impulse, which can be inspired by an idea or image. The idea or image can be put into a creative impulse. This is the act of intent. The creative impulse fuels the image or feeling, and the intent fuels the movement. This makes it a recognizable communicable act.

Movement is the foundation of all creativity in any artistic effort, and the practice of art involves the refinement and exploration of movement. We define it in ourselves, and recognize its elements and forms, and how our creativity affects it. We need to be able to recognize how movement is perceived and how it affects our audience.

When a simple thought is communicated, it is movement. The brain would not be capable of thinking without movement. Talking, painting, sculpting, dancing and acting are all movement, and during these acts, the creator is “in character”. Movement in the performing arts has unique characteristics. A musician has an instrument, which is a device that assists him in his expression. The instrument has particular characteristics that the musician exploits. The actor/dancer uses the body as their instrument. All these creative acts of movement use behavior(speech is a form of behavior) and additional qualities that are highly specialized and stylized and expand the capabilities of communication, and therefore, levels of intimacy.

We are all aware that in truth we judge books by their cover; we judge people stereotypically. This is how our brain was designed – to categorize information in order to make it easier to interact with. How many of us have tried to turn our friend into our lover? It is a big jump to go from one relationship category to the other. We have relationship categories that we fit others into in order to understand the protocols of that relationship, thus making it easy to interact with behaviorally. We can pretty much get away with not calling our friend for a week and then simply greeting them with “hey what’s up”. But if that friend had made the transition to lover, a week without a phone call could provoke rather unpleasant consequences. That is because the relationship category has changed and the protocol violated, and consequences appropriate to what that protocol dictates will usually occur (ouch). Have you ever had a good friend that was also your boss? Can you remember when the protocols for those categories conflicted?

Some of these interactions are intuitive and/or instinctive, but most are learned. The actor needs to be aware of these things. Granted, the director may call for a different interpretation, but knowing what to expect in regards to what happens provides an insight to the character that the actor can use to produce the vision of the director. In a typical interaction, according to my model, all human action occurs as a result of the innate desire for gratification. Outcomes are a result of the interaction of what we want, what we expect, and what actually happens. We are often taught what to expect, and also what to want. There are times in our lives where our judgement of self gratification is a synchronicity of wants and expectations, and sometimes not. For example, you may call an x lover hoping for and wanting reconciliation, but expecting the opposite, and then what happens could be even more different. And other times they will all synchronize. We react to all circumstances emotionally, and later, through a different paradigm (that is also emotionally based), we seek validation for our logical interpretation of our feelings about the events. You may confide in a friend, “Is it my fault, or should I really be pissed?”. Then your friend validates – “You should be pissed, I would be. No one has a right to treat you that way (social protocol)”.

Social protocols and stereotypes are inextricably linked. When you become habitually connected to a person in one category, it is difficult in many instances to switch to another category with different protocols. And we connect in many relationships to a point where that person becomes the stereotypical standard for that category on which we base the conduct and value of others. Taking it further, that person will become the symbol representing the value system of that category, at which point often becoming a model, mentor, or even a metaphor for that category.

Everybody has what I refer to in my model as the “mindset paradigm”. It is the workings and actions one takes to attain gratification in relation to their value system. Everybody has a value system of some form, and constantly wrestles with the synergies and conflicts of attempting to gratify oneself according to the value system they have established for themselves. When you gratify yourself inline with your values, you feel proud. When you gratify yourself with something against your values, you feel guilty.

We develop desires for things we think are important for whatever reason, and this becomes a value in our system that we try to live up to. From that evolves the beginnings of how we identify and define ourselves in the social structure, thus determining our behavior, which shows the role we have imposed on ourselves to play in whatever relationship category we are participating in.

Anna Sokolow had certain pieces that offered a propensity towards the acting craft. The movement was sparse and almost pedestrian. Without the superfluous beatitudes and ornamental architecture that most dance displays. Rather, I was exposed to the circumstances and forced to deal with them. The choreography was simple, but excruciatingly demanding in an unexpected way.

In such circumstances, I had to take my cues from my feelings. And Anna said to me on more than one occasion, “Feel it first, then move”. The choreography threw me into the social meaning of the piece, which was always powerful enough to drive my intent almost without effort. Her choreography dug so deep into the human condition that as an actor there was so much rich content to exploit. It was liberating. Anna spoiled me.

Anna’s genius lied in her ability to create movement that inherited its power from the way she built in the relationships between the players and with the audience. The message was obvious, yet deeply profound, and intuitive. Many people who saw her work spoke of how her pieces tended to linger inside them for several days after seeing it, only to be slammed with a moment of epiphany that emerged into their consciousness out of nowhere.

“Content is that which a work betrays but does not parade.” -Erwin Panofsky

I sincerely believe that there really isn’t a difference between dance and acting when it comes to their underlying principles. Because when you execute movement, whether it is pedestrian behavior or dynamic beatitudes, the source is the same; the instrument of our bodies.

But there seems to be a gap between acting and dancing. In my experience teaching movement for actors, there has been a consistent trend. Movement for actors classes are often at the bottom of the actor’s list of courses to take. As important as it is for actors to train their bodies in movement, it is just as important for dancers to train in acting.

When dancers move, yes they are displaying the aesthetic design of the choreographer, but it often stops there. You’ll see the dancer’s execution brilliant, smooth and flawless. And you’ll see this intense look on their face as if they are trying to hypnotize the space, deep in concentration, the same face you see on an athlete as they execute their task. Or they will have a pasted “en face” smile, or the zombie look, as if anything happening in front of the head is irrelevant and detached.

But I thought dance was an art form? Isn’t that what distinguishes dance from sports? Or does sports dwarf dance when it comes to the physical aesthetic expression of the potential of the human body, like gymnastics or even the circus? How can contemporary dance possibly compete? Sometimes, it seems like they are trying to do exactly that. I see dancers swinging on ropes and doing vertical gymnastics on velcro. Will audiences soon wise up and realize that the circus can provide an experience that makes the new novelty of contemporary dance drably impotent?

“Spectator sports are another secular surrogate for sacred practices. They provide something comparable to the pageantry of religious ceremony, the awe inspired by creation stories of symbols of transcendent power, or even the coordination enabled by common language and training. There is a quality of loyalty evoked in fans that goes beyond esthetic appreciation of athletic skills. The total emotional experience goes far beyond the game itself; there are symbols (the colors and emblems of the game), spectacles (parades, cheerleaders, mass activities), and authorities (coaches, judges). The Olympic Games utilize explicitly religious symbols stripped of religious meaning. The clearest example is the “eternal flame” carried from the site of one Olympic meeting to the next. The world cup in soccer elicits a response by fans that can only be deemed “holy”: chanting, singing, imploring the deities/players, and so forth. American football serves the same function… The object is to dominate, the experience, for the viewers, is televised adrenaline.”
Communication and the Human Condition – W. Barnett Pearce

Why bother to see dance when you can get a much more entertaining and deeper emotional experience with sports, especially since contemporary dance is stripping away the inherent social and emotional meaning and intensity.

There is a human being behind the movement. And too often what underlies the aesthetic form of dance, its intent, its premise, its message, is all but ignored. The opposite occurs as well. Dancers who are unfairly burdened with the task of “acting” in their roles to cover for the lack of creativity in the choreography are often found lacking in the necessary skills to pull it off. Dancers need acting as much as actors need dance, but both also need training in behavior, personality theory, social emotional intelligence etc.

An acting for dancers class is an exploration on how the faculties of the human condition translate to highly stylized and abstract movement without neglecting the circumstances necessary to lay the foundation of logic that is accessible to other human beings in order to endow them with a particular message.

When a movement becomes stylized it also inherits symbolism. This symbolism ranges from abstract to concrete, but it always has a connotation. And this is something the choreographer can take advantage of. He or she has to have the skills of an acting director. The dancer needs to understand the elements in those terms in addition to spatial design.

The basic elements of an acting for dancers class should include the following:

1. What are the social circumstances surrounding the moment. Religious? Political? Don’t leave this void in hopes of it being more universally accessible to the audience. Rest assured, they will by default have a subjective interpretation of the movement. But the more specific the intent of the statement by the dancer/choreographer the more profound the effect the audience will experience.

2. What are the relationships among the dancers’ characters? What social protocols are they observing or violating? How the dancers portray this is vital. If dancers are interacting for the sake of design alone, then there is an intimate connection that is broken with the audience that they have a right too. It is unfair to leave this responsibility solely up to the audience to construct the meaning. It seems odd to me that people would bother seeing performance art if they had to do all the work of gaining meaning from it. You may as well hang up empty canvases throughout MoMA and just let the viewers construct their own concepts of whatever happens to be in their imagination at the time. Now that I think of it, I’m sure it’s been done. And I’m sure it was heralded by the critics as one of the most brilliant exhibits ever to grace the face of the earth.

3. What are the obvious and subtle characteristics of the body of the character the dancer is portraying? Little things don’t mean a lot, they mean everything. What makes a piece powerful are those tiny nuances that audiences perceive unconsciously. They construct paradigms in their subconscious that either quickly or slowly surface to their consciousness and affects them on many emotional levels. They feel proud of the fact that they caught it, as if this moment was exclusive to them, which it is. They are now engrossed in the movement, and their human condition is easily accessible to you through this intimate connection. Many of you dancers out there have been lucky enough to experience this connection with the audience, stringing them along and feeding them those little morsels only at the exact right timing. And when it grooves, it’s magic.

There is much more to an acting for dancers class than just the above mentioned elements. The choreographer can benefit greatly from having techniques for directing actors, as theatre directors benefit from choreographic techniques. Likewise the dancer with acting skills has the potential to connect to the audience in rather profound ways. There is a symbiotic relationship between performer and audience that could almost be considered sacred.

The two most influential things in any given culture or society are religion and art. They both deal with the questions of the human condition; Who am I? Where am I? Where am I going? Joseph Campbell put it best:

(1) The “psychological” question, “Who am I?”

(2) The sociological question, “Who are we?”

(3) The cosmological question, “What is the nature of the universe in which we live?”

(4) The epistemic question, “What is the nature of our knowledge about the answers to all these questions?”

Religion provides answers to these questions in various doctrines, and art explores these questions, evolving into new questions and possible answers. Art considers common and not so common ideas juxtaposed in relationships that most would not otherwise consider, leading to new insights into the subject, and into ourselves.

What about science? Science interprets the world as much as it determines it. And I would say that arguably science is both a form of art and religion depending on its methodology. But because the scientist is interpreting findings from the context of a human being in a social structure, he or she cannot be divorced from artistic or religious influence and practice, and therefore, can never be completely unbiased. Even the math we “invent” is considered in many theoretical circles more of a result of our intense desire to have answers, to the point that our experiments are perhaps influenced and biased in a way that elicits subjective results which become the new definition of our existence. And the new technology we invent for the measurement of things may inadvertently be creating the very thing we suspect exists.

These inventions of instruments are designed with the intention of measuring something we suspect exists. The more acute and accurate these instruments get, the more abstract the detail of our existence it will manifest. Was it always there? Or are we causing its manifestation through the act of observation? Sometimes the experiments reveal something completely unexpected, and from our perspective we attempt to make sense of it in our subjective context.

So what is art? Art is an aesthetic born from creativity, provoked from intuition, and cultivated from the greater sum of one’s experiences, knowledge, wisdom, intuition and intimacy. It is a tool to explore the human condition. Its success, simply, is defined by how well it is communicated. I may not like what I see, but if I understand the message (or “un-message), it has succeeded. I may like it, I may hate it, but at least I was able to interpret it in the context the work proposed. The composer’s goal is to impart his logic in a manner that can be perceived and understood, even on a metaphysical or transcendental level. And that method of logic that the artist presupposes is the signal on which he carries his message.

Art is the human condition realizing its depths of intimacy. Philosophizing and articulating about the work of art gives the work perpetual life. It does not subtract from its potential. In fact, it makes it more profound and fuels its life. I’m sure many would arguably agree that the written/spoken word is the most powerful. Oratory, and books, have been responsible for the most heinous and miraculous historical events in recorded history. Words are the most powerful art. I’ve heard artists say that words take away from that which can only be said in an alternate medium, but I disagree. Words are the companion, the articulator and philosopher that deepens the experience of the abstract and universal. Art gives insight into the human condition through the attempt of articulating the feelings and ideas it gives us. It is where the essence of life itself exists.

Exploring these ideas and their implications brings us to the whys and hows of art, its function, and its contribution. Art is communication, and in order to express an artistic endeavor one must be able to communicate at some comprehensible level.

So if you are going to attempt a piece of art about nothing, then you are communicating such. The concept of nothing is something. What would make such a work profound is the artist’s endeavor to expose nothingness from a perspective that is unique, and incite the audience into thinking about nothing in ways they haven’t thought before.

If you bother to create a work of art, then you must be able to speak the language of the medium that you are using competently. Then, a basis of logic must be established with the audience. This is powerful because you set up the audiences thinking in a syntax that you determine, at which point you can carry your message on that established logic and influence them in profound ways. If you can change the way people think, you can change the world.

The more specific the message of the composition, the more accessible and universal it becomes. A work of art can only achieve ideal universality by succinct specificity. Many composers create dumbed down general art thinking they can make it more universal and more accessible to as many as possible. This won’t work. There is no means in the intent of the piece to establish an intimate connection with the audience, and the piece will fail. It may affect the audience through novelty and spectacle, but that is something altogether different.

Philosophers are still haggling over how we come to know things. The artist takes what we know and offers perspectives we haven’t thought of before in order to gain more insight into that knowledge. Art challenges knowledge and its interpretation. Whether you are looking through a microscope or through the human condition, the feelings of beauty and dread experienced from both are tangible and legitimately real. Art is for the smelling and tasting, the touching and feeling, and the dissecting. Art is an intimate act that is to be cherished whether it ravages our soul or beautifies our spirit.

Is there a relationship between logic and movement? Can the behavior the actor initiates violate the logic of his intent? Yes, and Yes. One of the most obvious examples of this is Shakespeare. You probably witnessed actors having a tough time with the language. The struggle comes from the violations in the logic of the behavior in relation to the speech. There is a certain logical synchronization of the behavior and speech when an actor nails Shakespeare. You wouldn’t know it because it doesn’t show; it seems natural and it flows. But when the rhythms are out of phase, it’s painfully obvious. The actor struggles with the speech and in their heavy state of concentration their bodies lose the connection and their behavior and intent becomes confused, and the words are almost forced out.

There’s no time for the actor to be brilliant or clever on the stage – just truthful. The words spoken have to be an inevitable result of the feelings and behavior, not vice versa, as so many actors practice. We rarely notice it in ourselves in everyday life since we are, for all intents and purposes, acting as ourselves. There seems to be a logical synchronization between our behavior and our speech. When there isn’t, it’s noticed. In more extreme cases, it’s referred to as “mal-adaptive behavior”.

The “normal” is determined by the social protocols as determined by society and culture. When those are violated, the person is often accused of being weird or strange. Don’t most of us go out of our way to avoid the “weirdos” we spot intersecting our path? I suggest you try to speak to one someday and observe their behavior closely. It’s quite fascinating. And one can only wonder, what journey did they take in their lives to end up using such behavior?

The more intriguing question is what behaviors translate to the stage? Some actors may do things on the stage that seem fake or don’t seem believable even though they may be accurately and truthfully depicting something that actually occurred. And likewise actors often portray things that are fake, yet seem believable as if they actually happened. The logic of behavior for the actor is a logic of performance – what the audience perceives as logical in the context of the theater, not necessarily the logic of what occurs in reality.

Because the prose of Shakespeare is foreign to most actors, since it is centuries old, it takes some study to incorporate such rhythms and nuances in one’s behavior in order to make it look natural on the stage, including knowing the context of the situations the speech conveys in relation to then and now. Finding that relationship is the matter for the director’s interpretation. With luck, the actor will be skilled enough to be able to behave in a way that justifies that interpretation. Then it is not so much a matter of being enjoyable to watch, because whenever I catch myself “watching” a play, I’m not involved, and I’m just watching a technical display as a spectator. But when I’m intimately connected with the performance, then I am involved in it, as if it is happening to me.

An actor needs to know how to take all the information at his disposal, including his own intuition and creative imagination, and take all the liberties necessary to behave in a way that justifies the context of the meaning of the prose. No small task, but if the actor has a repertoire of experiences and observations of how and why behavior happens, and has the ability to intuit the a priori circumstances that created the situation, he or she is much more equipped to be able to find those moments that makes the work squirm inside the very souls of the audience.

Most of what I see in the theater today is technical exposition (yawn). But there are those rare times when I see something that moves me, often without me noticing it first, then drops into my heart like an anvil. I wish such performances were a regular occurrence. I’m not talking about those spectacles that stroke or bruise your ego, I’m talking about those masterpieces that force me to deal with my inner self, and grapple with the questions of what part I play in this world, and what function I pretend to have in my own seemingly fabricated world.