18 June 2012

Listening


     When I was pregnant I had ears in my belly. I laid in front of my stereo, belly button near the speaker playing the soundtrack to Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, hoping that those growing bones would be nourished by listening to the glorious music of Yann Tiersen. 

I think it worked.

Listening is nourishment.


                 'All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening' - Alan Rickman

     As I explore voice in performance, the more I realise that being a good actor is more about actively listening than anything else. Listening and hearing. My good friend and colleague, Speech Pathologist Sarah Wilmot reminded me of a Kristen Linklater image just recently. That of the giant ear in the belly. I’d forgotten this little gem and have only just recently reintroduced into my practice.

     The concept of the ear in the belly: this is where you listen from. I’m constantly reminding my actors that this place, this pelvic bowl, this gut is where we genuinely hear things. We might verbally express grief or love as being affairs the heart, but it is in the belly that we really interact with that wrenching agony of despair or those thrilling butterflies of fresh love.

     If we put our ears, our giant ears in this place, we might just have a chance of bypassing the brain, that thing that I’m all too often asking actors to put out of the way.


                                             'Listen to many, speak to a few' - William Shakespeare

The aforementioned Sarah Wilmot exclaimed recently “Wouldn’t it be great if being well listened was held in as high esteem as being well read?”.

And it is not just voices we are listening for.

As a rule of thumb, I train my actors to listen to their space. Outside the space. The immediate space. Their bodies in the space. They have to be re-trained, as I had to. Generations of artists, so busy putting their goods out there that they forgot to listen. Imposing instead of resonating.

Listening allows us to welcome our space inside. In past our skin, in past the barriers we put up to protect ourselves. Right into our bellies. The core of oneself. With our space inside us, we are able to become the space. Resonating with instead of imposing upon. 


'If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would be invented that day.  For there would be an intolerable hunger'  - Muriel Rukeyser

I take the concept of the ear in my belly into my life.  I devour rich, open, resonant voices. The symphonic orchestra is a provocative dégustation menu. I develop indigestion from the cheap fast food of television noise.

Encouraged, my gut reaction becomes stronger. It prevails over my finely trained and long instilled set of manners and habitual reactions. Listening through my belly, I can more easily ‘speak my mind’  - but it’s not my mind; it is my gut, my impulse........


I recently had another little set of ears in my belly. They were tiny, probably not even existent. I laid in front of my stereo, belly button near the speaker playing the soundtrack to Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain. I hoped that tiny soul would find nourishment in listening. Listening was the finest gift I could think of to give this tiny, helpless being before saying goodbye.

I think it worked.

1 comment:

  1. Anna this is SO wonderful. I laughed and then I balled my eyes out. Huge love to you and your family, my heart goes out to you xxxx

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