Watching “Quarterlife” last week drove me crazy, because ALL THE ACTORS on that show were Jaw-Acting. By this I mean they relied on their jaws to demonstrate emotions (think actively-contrived jaw-clenching to “show” anger). This drives me bonkers, because any kind of jaw-tension is a sign of blocked expression, and contrived communication. In the chakra system, the throat chakra (of which the jaw is a part) is a hugely significant vessel for expression, communication and creativity, as well as the chakra responsible for making choices in the world and forging an identity.

Singers and actors spend their entire careers releasing jaw tension. A singer tightens his/her jaw to manipulate the sound. An actor tightens his/her jaw to manipulate the emotion. The really frightening thing - letting go - means that every single defense system we’ve learned as adults will fall to pieces and, god forbid, we might actually reveal our true selves.

Facial muscles in general are hugely sensitive areas. We learn to mask, manipulating our muscles to project whatever well-rehearsed image of ourselves we want the world to see. It’s the artist’s duty to let go of those defenses and show their true human colours. It’s vulnerability and imperfection, not aesthetically controlled self-defense, that moves an audience and changes lives.

Kristin Linklater touches on a lot of these psycho-emotional issues related to the jaw in her chapter on jaw-exercises. Her book, “Freeing the Natural Voice,” is at once intellectually engaging in its commentary on voice-physiology and hugely practical as a 16-week program for voice training for stage acting.

I love this passage because it discusses a process that is so important to singers, dancers, actors, and anyone who’s body is their instrument. He describes the very challenging and wonderful experience of learning how to feel your body - how to develop what’s called a “kinesthetic sense,” to be aware of habits in your body that you thought were just normal or “right.” As a singer, this is something I deal with every day - how to let go of “voices” I presume are “right” and “correct,”regardless of what kind of unnecessary strain they put on my body, or what extra effort I must do to produce them.

Check it out.

Martha Graham was one of the founding mothers of modern dance, and an icon in the New York performing arts community of the 20th century. She also happens to write brilliantly about being an artist - any kind of artist.

I discovered this book in my first month of theatre school, and I really believe it changed me. This here’s a selection from the book’s Introduction. She’s hella intense and tends to ramble just a tad, but her brilliance shines through her rambling. Towards the end of this reading she explains what she means by “Blood Memory,” giving a view on what it means to be an artist that is so inspirational it makes you happy to be alive. I also find her earlier discussion of “practice” deeply comforting and very powerful.

Check out this book. It’s full of incredibleness.

Studying philosophies of performing technique is a hobby of mine. I’m fascinated by the mind-body connect that is so prevalent in modern theatre training. As performing artists, our bodies are our instrument, and must be approached as a work of art in themselves. I’m interested in holistic, even spiritual approaches to understanding how to use the instrument of our body for acting, singing, playing an instrument or dancing (i’m not a dancer, but i do the other three things).

I will cover topics like vocal health, Alexander technique, breath, movement for actors. And whatever else comes my way.

This reading is from Patsy Rodenburg’s “A Right to Speak.” Patsy is a world-renowned voice-and-speech specialist for the theatre, and this book deals a lot with the psychology of vocal training and its physiological reverberations. In this passage, she talks about the different “voices” we assume, and how we can mistake them for our authentic voice.

The Crying of Lot 49
Thomas Pynchon
Recorded and Foley’d by James Finnerty
read by r dickens.

In this section of Ubik you’ll hear the hero with a hangover arguing with the robot voices who run his apartment. He tries to get them to tidy up the place a bit and make coffee before letting a colleague and mysterious woman into his house. The woman, it turns out, has a power more incredible then the others on the team of anti-psychics our hero leads… she moves in and changes time’s path and so all possibilities fall messily open before them.

Anyway, it was a fun one for us, and I hope you enjoy it!

Ubik by Philip K Dick.
Vintage Books, New York. 1969.