Eric Morris is big on sense memory (something I confess I never really learned to use on stage) and in his books he teaches a preparatory instrumental exercise called Sensitizing. You go through your senses: tactile, olfactory, gustatory, auditory and visual, and gently become aware of and awaken each one. It's an experiential exercise and sort of hard to describe. You have to go through it and discover it for yourself.
The best sensitizing workshop, if I may, that I enrolled in was Vipassana Meditation. We sit and observe and become aware of all the sensations happening at the moment in the body. Each time I sit down now to try to sensitize, I do a vipassana meditation instead. It's difficult, but the results are amazing. I feel more alert and open and available and compassionate. Or, I feel whatever I feel at the moment. Sometimes I'm just sleepy so that tells me my body needs rest. I learn to listen to my body.
Now, in the REP Fringe workshop, we were supposed to create Space around us. It's supposed to be a real space, and we can determine it's shape, size, attributes. We did this by imaging it, sometimes as honey, sometimes as if we're digging a tunnel for ourselves in thick mud. Then you expand this shape around you and know that it is there to hold you and support you and it's a safe place you can expand and let others into.
So I'm assigning myself a little homework. I'm going to experiment with space and sensitizing. I will do sensitizing exercise first via vipassana meditation, and then after some time, try to use the available sensations I feel at the moment and use that to create my space. Wouldn't that be exciting? I wonder what I'll discover.
I feel miles away from being Giles Corey. I'm hoping that is the role that's finally assigned to me for the recital. We're doing "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller. Our recital is on June 1. Hope you can come and watch.