What a wonderful exercise today, practice that David referred to as the "Storyteller's Schizophrenia", telling about a person while embodying that person, expressing a personality with your body while referring to him or her in the 3rd person. Since Bob has already claimed the word "magic" for his blog post today, I will say it was most illuminating watching my colleagues "become" a character with just a few defining gestures.
This exercise helped answer a question I've had about characterization: what are other ways of showing characters to an audience besides using your voice? I really appreciated the opportunity to see Chris embody that quirky character through his tics and movements, then observe narrator Chris take over when he told us he had a heart, both seeing and hearing him express affection for the character, and then slip back into embodying some of the man's behaviors again.
By the way, an added bonus is that this exercise, and this class, is helping me develop my eye for how storytellers enhance a story. In previous posts I've expressed how helpful it is to do things, to learn through movement, and how much I learn from learning through conversation with colleagues. I also learn much from watching others, and wanted to express my thanks for my colleagues' willingness to let me study you as you learn.
This got me too, Catherine, how easily some of us just melted into the mold of their characters. It was a little creepy, but very cool!
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect of this that struck me was now much some people, from even decades ago, stay with us. That we are able to embody them alone says so much about the power of human connection.
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