Gliding and slashing with Claudia Roe

Today we focused on finding the quality of our characters using the eight Laban efforts, which are:

• Wring- heavy, sustained, indirect  
• Press- heavy, sustained, direct
• Flick- light, staccato, indirect
• Dab- light, staccato, direct
• Glide- light, sustained, direct
• Slash- heavy, sustained, indirect
• Float- light, sustained, indirect  
• Punch- heavy, staccato, direct

We experimented with all of the efforts paying attention to the different speeds, weights and direction moving around the space experimenting with both dramatized and naturalistic ways of moving within these rules. There are two that I identified with for Claudia's character:

Movement- glide
This choice was very easy for me to make and yet there are different variations of the gliding motion. One of the first things Ben picked up in the first weeks of this process is that when Claudia moves, she has a purpose; she plans it does and moves to effect someone, so the effect I chose had to be direct. Take Claudia's planned movements and her status and you find a women who refuses to rush for anyone- she moves around when needed but it is in no way hectic; it is always calm, cool and collected, so there comes our sustained motion. Not only does Claudia walk in heels, so automatically walks on her toes, she is the kind of women who would see heavy footedness as something ugly; it would ruin her sleek appearance, so her movements must be light. Gliding to me felt regal and powerful. Moving in this manner is a vote of self confidence in ones self to keep up this upheld, gliding motion. It is this effect that causes Claudia's movement to fit her overall aesthetic.

Voice- punch
Judging Claudia's vocal quality on this scale proved to be harder- I don't actually believe any of them fit completely with her voice. However for moments in the play I believe punch is an effect which can be seen in her voice. Claudia says a lot of horrible things, directly aimed at particular people in the aim of creating the most impact. The line that came to mind was the one we wrote in which was 'you know, your ideas sound just about as successful as your marriage.' It is heavy- after a scene in which Jeff opened up to her she is delivering an insult that is meant to hit Skilling hard. It comes out of nowhere and changes the whole tone of the conversation so you can see a staccato nature in her wit and replies when she is battling for the upper hand in an argument. Plus this line couldn't be delivered to any one else; it was designed and crafted in her brain, it was gift wrapped specially for Skilling and therefore direct. It is line's like these that indicate a punch effort in Claudia's words.

Identifying these are important because it gives you something more visceral to work with. When I move now or deliver a line, I can imagine these actions which will begin to exaggerate and push my character to the extremes that it needs to make a stand in this play. I think having a key word or effect to focus on makes your work more succinct and thoughtful.