Four important lessons I learned from acting class
On Improvisation, Observation, Practicing and Embodiment
Greetings from Tehran,
In this post:
Improvisation to understand your vulnerabilities
The power of observation
Practice vs. Perform
Embodiment
Years ago, I wanted to be a playwriter. I wanted to switch my career from an IT professional to the world of art. The world of theater was (is) magic for me. It's giving life to stories and going beyond realities by changing the rules of life and relationships. Yes, I wanted to be a playwriter, but I thought I needed something more than the rules of playwriting. I wanted to try to understand characters and living stories on stage. I thought living with actors gives me a different perspective and helps me know what will happen to the story when it comes to life. It was my reason to pursue the journey of being a playwriter with an acting class.
Now, I'm not a play writer nor an actor. I gave myself a chance to live another side of life. I bet it was one of the best choices in my entire life. It changed my direction. It was a personal development journey and gave me a foundation to understanding life more than any personal development workshop.
We had special training for voice, body movement, sympathetic characters, status improvisation, etc. Here are lessons I learned from attending an acting class.
Improvisation to understand your vulnerabilities
In the class, I had to improvise and play situations along with other participants. For example, I had to be a husband in a tense family, addicted person in the street, unfortunate, or even very happy. It had to happen at the moment. It was stressful when I wanted to start acting, but I had to create or follow the story with my weaknesses and strengths. In every improvisation moment, I could understand different aspects of my emotions. I could find similarities between that situation and my real life where I had experienced before.
Sometimes acting made me deeply sad, and I could search for the root, and sometimes it made me much energetic. I had the opportunity to live like different characters. It gave me a new perspective and understanding of myself and others.
The Power of Observation
One day our teacher asked us to sit in the streets and observe people. He asked us to watch every detail. For example, what do they do when they are at the window of a shop? How do they do when wanted to cross the street? How does a mother interact with her child? How does an older man walk? Etc. The practice of observation has become a habit for me.
The observation and identifying behavioral patterns is a crucial source for learning. For example, a waiter at a restaurant can learn and improve his service by observing how the customers come, leave and eat. He can learn much from the everyday behavior of people and anticipate what they may need.
As an organizational development practitioner, I was assigned to understand and improve the organizational culture in one of my projects. Part of my job in the first month was observing what people do in different locations. For example, how they are in the meeting rooms or cafe or even stairs. The observation process and interviews aimed to promote an informal approach of communication from top managers to the whole organization. What made people feel more comfortable at work.
Practice vs. Perform
Every theater is the result of practicing for months. For the final day of our class, we should have a performance in front of audiences. It took time for my partners and me to have the confidence to perform. We were indeed rookies, but more than that, we needed time to understand each other in our roles. There were details we needed to pay attention to. After every practice, we gathered and talked about our experiences. We were trying to find improvement opportunities.
Practicing is such a regular activity for theater groups or sports teams. But what if we have the opportunity to practice at life or work? How would it look like?
In working with different organizations, people usually continue to do the job every day. But what if we allow ourselves to sit and talk about what we had experienced emotionally at work? What if we had the opportunity to talk about how we work instead of what's the work?
Even in life, we continue to live and pass days, but what if we had the opportunity to start a conversation with family or friends about how we live? Or about how we experience life? What if we had the chance to share part of ourselves that is usually hidden and shape our fundamental solitude? ** It's like a crack in us, but it's where the light gets in**. (This last sentence was from Leonard Cohen)
We learn to live by living, and we learn to work by working. To understand how we live and work, we need to create another space for ourselves—a space to increase awareness about how we are performing.
Final note: Embodiment
When I review my life, I realize that most of my profound learnings and insights were not just from professional classes or training. It does not mean that those classes or training were not helpful. But I gained insights and understandings from situations that I had the chance to embody something. Attending the acting classes years ago was such an experience for me.
Embodiment is:
When we embody, it means we have the chance of living a new story, and that story becomes part of us. For me, involving with different forms of art is a way of embodiment.