Meisner, Alexander and Open Source: Comparing techniques for interaction. by risa
by Risa Dickens.
The Meisner Technique is a kind of behavioral recoding for the actor. It was developed out of the Stanislavsky System to help a performer find truthful underlying emotion in interaction with fellow actors- either in improvisations or a scripted scene.
The Alexander technique is another process of behavioral discovery and recoding discovered by an actor (F.M. Alexander) and used to help the individual find the simplest possible movement beneath layers of accumulated habit.
A historical analysis would probably find many intersections between the early practictioners of these two methods, but that’s not my interest here. I’m curious about the shared intention, and the similarites of the central actions involved in these two techniques. And, as usual, I am interested in exploring the relationships between these systems for improving interaction, and the open source process for developing software and communications protocals.
At the core of both Meisner and Alexander is a principle of repetition:
Meisner’s major unique contribution to the craft of acting is his “Repetition Exercise,” a training exercise for building skill in behavioral communication. The experience of the exercise is difficult to describe in words, but the general rules are that you either describe the behavior of another person in the scene, or you repeat the last words said to you by the other person. The result of extended practice is that actors become very proficient in being able to understand and respond to the body language of other people.
(Stanford Meisner in the Wikipedia)
Alexander Technique is an educational discipline practiced to improve performance and prevent the physical decline caused by habituated mannerisms.(…)
(H)uman senses are built to adapt to continuous messages sent by the brain. Repetition makes perceptual sensation disappear. Keeping muscles contracted when they don’t need to be used compares to leaving the kitchen light on continuously because it so often needs to be on – which is a waste of energy.
(…)
The medium of study is known as the sense of kinesthesia or proprioception, the sense that is used to internally calibrate one’s own bodily location, weight and to judge the effort necessary for moving. The founder’s original intent was to apply the scientific method to more completely carry intention into action. His objective was to make experimentation and training deliberately repeatable, and to learn in a way that would allow continuing improvement from any starting point.
(…)
The reason Alexander Technique takes so long to learn is because the kinesthetic sense is often the most “taken for granted” and habitually ingrained. It is difficult to get rid of what cannot yet be perceived.
(…)
Habits are often tied to self-image and emotions, as well as a cultural foundation of assumptions and self-questionable judgment. Ingrained habits seem to have a sense of self-preservation that acts as if habits fear their possible lack of importance. After facing and surpassing many of their own insistent habits, long term learners of Alexander Technique often discover that that what is motivating their new choices has now become their new core of identity, replacing egocentric habit.
(Alexander in the Wikipedia)
Initially there seems to be two divergent ideas about repetition here. Alexander technique is concerned with the repetition of physical habits- clenching the neck defensively, for example- that accumulate and impede easy movement. But to identitfy those habits and to build a new behavior the technique employs another kind of repetition: a repetition with a different focus or intentionality.
The most characteristic practice of my Alexander lessons was the repetition of standing up and sitting down. The way my body wanted to do it was interrupted by my teacher’s words and small adjustments and with that new mindfulness I’d enter the movement again and again, until it felt like I was lighter. Like I was doing it for the first time each time.
In a Meisner class the intention is remarkably similar. In the beginning two actors sit face to face and repeat – initially without variation- simple observations. “You’re tired” “I’m tired” “you’re tired” “I’m tired.” And though it’s very tempting to perform some different version of the observation with each repetition (it is supposedly an acting class, after all) what you want instead is to strip those kinds of habitual, surface emotions away. Precisely because they are performances. What you are looking for instead, it seems, is a loss of all such assumptions, which will then create a kind of open space for immediacy and surprise. What Meisner practitioners call ‘the pinch and the ouch’ of actual feeling in imagined situations.
As the Meisner classes progress levels of complexity are added but the intention remains the same. You repeat and repeat until a new perception occurs to you about the other person. You throw this to them and they take that moment to legitimately feel what you’ve said and to react. And then this is repeated- “You’re tired” “I’m tired” “you’re tired” “I’m tired” “you’re tired” “You’re nervous” “I’m nervous” “You’re nervous” “I’m nervous”. Though this feels wrong and counter-intuitive, what it begins to make apparent is the wealth of information being conveyed by the body behind the act of repetition. The many times that a new observation can be seen and felt instead of automatic reactions. The deep well of possible emotion and intense communication beneath all of our de-sensitized, knee jerk social performances. The actor’s responsibilty (according to Meisner or Stanislavsky) is to seek a deep intentionality, so that their performance is layered, awake and connected in a fundamental way. So that they communicate their feeling not just to their fellow actors but to their audience as well.
What a strange and tricky thing- to not just act it but also feel it. And how oddly appropriate that an actor, wondering why he was losing his voice, would discover further layers of habit in his musculature and posture which were putting themselves, in a way, between him and his audience. Alexander was a Shakespearean orator, so I guess this realization about the mirrored relationship between the world and the stage should not be at all surprising. Alexander extended the actors’ goal of immediacy to the daily reality of social performance and interaction. From the act of playing at life emerged knowledge about modern life and the ways in which we build architechtures of automation.
My Alexander teacher was concerned with what he saw as an enormous cultural loss. How the vast majority of people he saw in public carried themselves in distorted ways, ways that conveyed to him either extreme pain or, what’s maybe worse, such habitual clenching and slouching that the pain had evolved beyond the individual’s awareness into numbness.
What he challenged me to do was interrupt my processes, pause, and then begin them again with simple intention- very similar to the Buddhist principle of Right Mindfullness.
And perhaps this is the challenge for Western culture, industrialized culture, globalized culture generally: that we might pause to re-examine our systems and to allow ourselves to see surprising blockages and simple solutions where previously we saw only inevitablity.
This is certainly the benefit of an Open Source practice or ideology. In the repetition of each individual’’s gaze upon the workings of a system- a web browser, or an operating system, or a music playing program for example- small assumptions become apparent. Someone sees the bug, and someone else sees the means to fix it.
In this view Alexander, Meisner and Open Source are like techniques applied to networks that differ in complexity by orders of magnitude.
Alexander deals with the network of the individual body in interaction with the world- it looks at the coordination between body parts in action and seeks to develop an openness to others, to newness, to space, which is unimpeded by habitual mannerisms.
Meisner deals with individuals in interaction with each other and with another’s script, emotions, ideas, directions.
Open source deals with the interaction between individuals and machines (systems, ideas, scripts) and seeks unimpeded, open communication and the possibilty for an immediacy that is made impossible by closed code.
This is just a preliminary exploration. Future areas to consider between these three very different processes would be: pragmatic philosophy (John Dewey claimed to have learned a great deal about interaction from Alexander) and improvisation, or the techniques employed by Augusto Boal and the theatre of the oppressed, and their political, theoretical relationship to open source.
My thanks go to Claire Brosseau and Jessica Pare for their insights into the Meisner technique, and to Lawrence Smith for teaching me Alexander.
August 21st, 2005 at 1:31 pm
Dear Risa: Thanks for directing me to your article. At a first reading, I find it fine. It is a very difficult subject to write on, as we must first assume that there are many perspectives from which to explore the material. The Wikipedia article is interesting, but the author seems stuck on the idea of repetitive action being the cause of problems, and I do not think this is always the case. For example, an accident can create a reaction that is protective and adaptive and becomes a constant in an instant. So I don’t think that repetition is the issue. But that is just quibbling. Were I to write an article (I have, but they reside on my hard drive, reluctant to venture forth in their sorry dress), I would stress the functioning of postural reflexes as they predict and adapt to our conceptions and decisions. I would explain the hierarchy of these reflexes, and how the first adjustments for possible action involve changes in balance, and are seen in the tonic neck reflexes. But I prefer to save my hot air for my students, who, anyway, will get more from a kinesthetic encounter than they would from an attempt at presenting theory.
Hope you are well,
Lawrence
August 21st, 2005 at 3:32 pm
Hello again Risa,
I realize that I neglected to state how much I like the parallels you make between the Meisner approach and the A.T. I always appreciated his approach, a very non-doing approach, in which one builds self-awareness rather than constructing a shell of “technique”. There is so much that is simply there if we can get out of the way and stop doing, doing, doing. I have been having an exchange with a singer — voice for Alexander — which proceeds along the same lines – really examining all of the crap that has been added on unthinkingly, and seeing what happens when you try to breathe or make a vowel sound without all of the control and fear patterns getting in the way. A lesson with Marie-Annick is for me like having an Alexander lesson. And I seem to be able to help her out a little, so it’s fun. It is always interesting to see some clear basic ideas (I hesitate to call them “truths”, but it is tempting…) appear in diverse applications.
Bye,
Lawrence