Form you face into a mask

5/12/07

Today we had a very special lesson. For the first time I learned how essential are body movements and expressions. Steve taught 3 face expressions that we should form as a mask: happy, sad and anger.

Until than I didn't know that doing these expressions correctly is so hard. Every single twist in your face make the audience understand something else and interpert it differently. Steve ask us to stand in a circle, and he showed us the different expressions. So far it was fine, but than each face had 4 different forms, or levels- from 1 to 4, which 4 is the "extreme" expression. This is how it works:

Happy - 1, 2, 3, 4
Sad - 1, 2, 3, 4
Anger - 1, 2, 3, 4

While Steve taught us these faces I tried to look at the most important parts of the face which change. For example, I noticed that the mouth is being used a lot as a tool for expressing emotions, so I tried to look at the difference in the mouth in each face. I found out that as "larger" you mouth is, as bigger your expression. In happy number 1 for example the mouth was closed and showed only a small smile, though in level 4 it was a happy-big-teeth-showing smile. The eyes and the eyebrows also play a big rule in showing expressions. In my opinion, the eyes play an important part because when the actross really feel like his face, his eyes will testify that.
After Steve showed us these techniques we started doing them alone, and than it just got harder. Our mission was to make one expression, but make a whole other body movement. For example, to make a happy 4 expression but angry 2 movement. I found it really hard. You need to actually stick your face in one position and than think about your movement- and than match them togethere. My body got completly mixed. I decided to lock the face, and try to concentrate on my body, and it did work better. Than we sang a happy song while we had an angry expression, or laughed when we were sad, and that was confusing because it was really unatural.

The point of the lesson in my opinion is to understand how much we can show by using our faces, and so we can take that and use it for our coming Commedia De'll Arte production. I learned that it is very hard to control your emotions when your body acts in a different way, and that the face has a lot of power. I'll try to think about it in my performances, and try to make my character's emotions as understandable as possible even though the limit, which is the face that sticks on your face by the mask and doesn't chasnge.