The Eternal Return: Longtime Students Talk About Coming Back for More

What does it mean to return and return again? Three veteran students muse on their
subconscious and conscious experiences, and the interaction between improvisation 
and daily life. 

Shaking Hands with Myself
Victoria Joy
 
Last year, a Maori man tattooed the top of each of my feet in 
traditional patterns. He told me that in his culture, these markings are 
organized to reveal a story. The meanings are not linear, nor can they be fully
explained through language. As the process of the needle piercing the skin is intense,
I was breathing with intent. 
 
An hour or so into it, I began petitioning silently for merciful patience. Later, and 
not so quietly, I was sounding and sweating. Sensing my discomfort under his hand, 
the young artist shared what his father had told him about receiving a tattoo. 
He offered, "This is one of the few times in life that you have the opportunity to 
shake hands with your self.” His words did not eradicate my uncontrollably trembling
jaw; his words did inspire an inward stillness. 
                      presence.
                      now.
 
In 1997 I had the good fortune of meeting Action Theater. Rhiannon and Ruth were 
co-leading a workshop in New Mexico that combined improvisational voice and song 
with improvisational sound and movement. With my then virginal feet, I was stepping 
into something that would keep me walking, running, and standing still with passion.
 
Since that initial taste, which clearly bit me back, I've attended many month-long trainings,
an Italy workshop, and an advanced invitational training that I blundered my way through
with great humility. Actually, no training has seen me without my head to the ground. 
 
This is part of the appeal. There is rich and plentiful opportunity to get humble. Each time 
I have the thrill and horror of jumping into an intensive, I enter into new layers of vulnerability.
It usually takes a thick week before I notice I am dissolving, becoming dismembered. 
My sense of self starts to unglue, unstick, and, in seemingly miraculous moments, become 
transparent. My defenses and preferences are no longer cemented to “me.” By week two, 
I become conscious of fellow students' eyes, which seem to be spinning. Somewhere between 
weeks two and three, I notice their eyes have become clear and reflective. By week four, 
we all appear markedly different from how we were when we began.
 
Yes, I'm hooked. First, there's the layer of learning the form. Then, within that, comes
the surrender into presence, what is, awareness, choices, the unseen becoming conscious, 
the resistance to everything just mentioned, and the essential spice: humor.
 
I continue coming to the trainings not only because I get to “shake hands with my self,” 
but also to have the experience of the world being a more vital place of throbbing 
consciousness to be dancing with, in, and through. Immersed in community, we work 
away under Ruth's guidance to apprehend the ineffable. Every workshop, I fall in 
love with the mystery, again.

Why do I return? Is it the pain? The pleasure? The bumping into aspects of habit, 
habitation, and inhibition? Maybe it's watching and experiencing transformation. 
The paying attention to something dying and something being born. Maybe it simply
takes a lifetime to integrate.

Dream
Deanna Anderson

I have this recurring dream....

I open the door to my Action Theater class. I have butterflies in my gut, I am shaking, and
my palms are sweaty. I anticipate a wild ride with myself and with whoever else shows up.

In the next few hours I move, I sound, I speak, sharing the experience of my ever-changing
reality with myself, with the spirits in the room, and with the other folks improvising with me.
I am creating and inhabiting worlds ancient and new; strange and wondrous creatures breathe
through me. The butterflies are now winged angels, the shaking has become a rattlesnake's tail,
and my sweaty palms are cascading waterfalls....

I awaken from the dream. I open my eyes. The walls are shimmering. I heat the water for my
morning tea.

My Reasons for Repeating
Molly Sullivan

I love the intensity!
I love the play!
I love to be in my body!
I love to be surprised by myself and by the others!
I hate and love to be moved out of my comfort zone!

I live for the moments when I am completely in the moment, when the critic in my head is
silent, when I can trust my improvisation partners to maintain their centeredness as well and
together we experience places we’ve never been, both internally and externally.

In each intensive, my task is very simple: Do not plan. Go into the space. Listen to my body and
move/sound/speak from there.

My work is always changing. Action Theater itself is always evolving. My technical skills always
need refining. The details always need refining. T he intensive immersion is similar to a language immersion in a foreign country; constant exposure, practice, and living the culture progress me at an exponential rate of growth.

I gain confidence in my performance skill by constant exposure in front of others.
The intense, supportive camaraderie that develops is stimulating and nourishing
to me. I feel myself getting better and better in this compressed and extended period of time.
I feel myself learning more and more about myself in relation to improvisation and in relation
to my performance partners.

And the lessons I learn in the workshop spill over into my personal and professional life in ways
that make me ever more strong and true.