The Gift

and occasional poems

 

 

The Gift

 

I can only give what is alive in me.
Life awakened is a gift received.

Giving-Receiving, both is one,
Shattering all thought, the instant begun.
Living in every only one moment:
The Present.

The Gift is Life,
     Offered in simplicity by God beyond imagining,
  Nurtured beyond limits by the Universe that knows me.

The Gift expressed is Creation.
   The simplest of sounds ……the slightest of gestures
Become
The Soul Revealed.
Shaped through Genius it is Art.
Celebrated in Sharing it is Love.

The Gift is Life Transformed
Into
A Miracle of Awakenings.

                                              

                                                                       Loyd Williamson

 

 

 

who is this man and what is he doing here

Movement Coaching in Production

according to Loyd Williamson

Movement Specialists: when working on a production, no one knows how to list us in the program; few people know what we are doing there; and when we do what we do well, no one knows we have done it. To confuse matters even more, not all of us do the same thing. Therefore, the following is my view of who we are and what we do on a production team.

The questions in the title of this article are typical of the questions that people ask when a Movement Specialist is being considered for a production:  the producer may ask,   “Doesn't the director give the actors all the help they need?"; the director and actors may say, “Thank you very much, but  we ourselves are quite capable of handling the physical life of  any  character";  then if an individual producer, director, or actor does feel the need to hire the Movement Specialist,  which is obviously the way that this particular M.S. gets his jobs,  then the above questions travel around among other people in the company with whom I am about to work: "Who is this  person; what is a Movement Specialist;  and why can’t  the director and actor handle that job?”

Who am I and what do I do here ?

Let’s begin with a simple statement:  I am a person who works with an actor's body, the actor's physical life. I am a practitioner of a physical technique. In my case, the technique that I use is the one which I have developed.  My work on a production is a practical application of this technique. My first concern in a production is the overall workings of the actor's body, how it  takes in  the world of the production and how it sends out  responses, behavior. This involves the actual physical workings of the body ( the freedom, balance and strength of the body; how various parts of the body are functioning: the spine, the back, chest, abdomen, etc.;  the relationship of these parts to each other: the lower back to the upper chest, the neck to the head, the pelvis to the upper body,  the workings of the breath,  the openness of the throat; and  the liveliness of  the five senses, etc.). These are matters of basic physical technique. Some actors have a complete mastery of these and, of course, some very talented actors don’t. In the practical  daily rehearsal process, the most skillful of actors, sometimes more than any other, wishes  the assistance of a specialist to help with matters of strain, tension, or inhibition.

The second area of my work deals with shaping behavior  so that it is appropriate to the time place and culture of the production (1960’s south Texas barroom,  a 1920’s New York upper class mansion, or a 1590’s Elizabethan court).  This would  involve learning the skills of  how the characters walk, sit, and carry themselves using  the historically accurate etiquette of the era.  This is usually called style coaching.  In addition to etiquette,  shaping behavior may include teaching the social dancing for the period,  it may include the physical life for crowd scenes and for the individual characters in crowd scenes. It can also include the physical technique for creating especially demanding problems such as physical disabilities, extreme age problems, drunkenness,  drug addiction, etc..

In summary my work on a production deals with first, the overall processes of the actor's body and second, the shaping of behavior which is appropriate to the production requirements. The scope of my work with an actor's body  encompasses how it  functions in any acting situation: films, plays, musicals, auditions, rehearsals and for creating any character whether in contemporary or period setting.

 

 

 

To My Visitors

On Leaving the Lodge

I am not the father

Certainly no grandfather
        (except your truth you see in me)
The essence of me is you.
You start in me like a single seed in mother by father
And we grow sky’s blue into garnet passion.
Until the present explodes into white,
Silver dissolving all shapes.
What was my body---earth---becomes air,
Wind in the bells, ringing along side this house.
Sounds we have often shared.
The doors of the porch squeaking gently closed
Then almost but not fully open.
Portals pouring out your laughter, some fears, joy, perhaps tears
Within which your inspiration and creation comes alive
burning your art into gold.
Inside these are the spirits, mysteries, of all the senses that are each of you
Connecting in one
Dancing out across this land.
And that is the gift I receive from you.
Can God give more?

                                                        -Loyd Williamson