"This above all: to thine own self be true."  --Hamlet 1.3, William Shakespeare

In my theater class today, we were supposed to be true to the feelings and movement of seaweed and a current.  If you're an aspiring actor or just someone who fancies experimentation, feel free to repeat this acting exercise once you've read the blog. 

Goal: relaxation, no active thinking, freedom of movement, imagination

Time: 10 minutes (5 minutes each)

Equipment: 2 people who are willing to ditch their hectic human lives for 10 minutes and take on the persona of (literally go-with-the-flow) sea organisms.    

I stood with my eyes closed in the middle of the room that used to be the practice floor for dancers of the Royal Ballet; no tutu, no shoes, and certainly no neat bun (have you seen these untamable curls?). Through my feet extended the wiry roots of a seaweed, my body was the bright green, flexible algae. With my eyes shut, it was imperative to the success of the exercise that I trust that my partner Sarah was in fact doing her part of the job: she was the ocean's current, sometimes calmly ebbing and sometimes rushing by me.  With her arms and hands determining the current's strength and speed, she touched me, brushed me, pushed me.  My task:  as honestly as possible, without making an active decision how to move, I was to react to the giving and taking of the current.  At times my shoulders would sway back and forth, adjusting to Sarah's nudge to my upper back.  Or perhaps my knees would quiver side to side when Sarah ran her fingers without a break across the backs of my knees.  My arms flopped and my entire body swayed gently in between Sarah's actions as I felt the roots of the seaweed extend through my hips, knees, ankles, and feet down through the floor boards.    

It's harder to be an honest seaweed (incapable of moving on its own, thinking on its own, making decisions on its own) than one would think.  We live in a world that is so dependent on active thought, from middle school we're taught to be thinking one step ahead, always brainstorming an idea.  This exercise, introduced to the western world by a Japanese acting master, requires us to turn off that switch that makes life hectic and complicated and embrace a quasi-improvisation mindset.  For those 5 minutes of seaweed world, I wasn't a girl thousands of miles away from my family, I wasn't beginning adulthood, or dreading the moment when my subway card would eventually run out of money (ironically, that happened later today).  For those 5 minutes I let the current dictate my life, a delicacy that is so rarely experienced in the developed world, and I relished the rejuvenation it produced in that class and for the rest of the day.                   

TRY OUT SEA WEED LIFE; IT ROCKS!