Sliding into Presence
Julie Feinstein

Editors’ note: Action Theater scores and techniques are mentioned but not 
explained in detail in this article. Please refer to Ruth Zaporah’s book, Action Theater: 
The Improvisation of Presence, for a thorough description of the form.

The night before my first Action Theater workshop, I did a Tarot card reading
on myself, which I recorded in my journal, meticulously noting the meanings of each 
card. Two cards stand out as I look back on it now: “The Fool,” signifying “awakening 
perception, beginning an adventure, taking the initiative without considering the 
consequences, being guided by intuition;” and “Death,” or “breakdown as a necessary 
precondition of rebirth, letting go of possessions, ideas, or justifications.”

My “Fool”-ish leap into “awakening perception” happened in the summer of 1996. 
I had just completed a graduate degree in performance art and found myself loitering on 
a metaphorical street corner: no job, no goals, no idea of what to do next.

On a whim, I called various retreat centers around Northern California for brochures 
on their workshops and classes. Having been in school continuously since the age of three, 
I was attracted to the familiar structure of a training as a way to order the next few moments 
of my life.

The Tassajara Buddhist Monastery offered “Improvisation and Zen,” with Ruth Zaporah 
and Barbara Cohn. I had heard of Ruth from one of my teachers in my master's program, 
and had always been curious about meditation. I had also had some experience with 
performing improvisational theater; and yet I was not someone then who foolishly 
leapt into the void with ease, who welcomed the death that precedes rebirth.      

I was nervous. But a week of improvisation, meditation, gourmet vegetarian meals, and 
Japanese-style spring-fed baths in  Big Sur? The combination proved irresistible.
 

***

Day One

On the first afternoon, we arrive, get settled, and receive rudimentary instruction in 
Zen meditation from the resident head monk.

That evening, we gather in the yurt, a large, octagonal structure with wood floor, canvas 
tent walls, and plastic sheeting windows that would prove by day to be an unfortunately good 
retainer of heat. We introduce ourselves, discuss why we are here, what we want. I talk about 
my inner critic and fear of not being good enough.

After each person has spoken, Ruth asks us to stand and start walking. We are directed to 
experiment with looking at others, following others, then freezing randomly, then deliberately 
freezing in patterns that would convey image or feeling, then trying to freeze simultaneously.

Next, we stand in a circle and take turns sending a sound and gesture around, each 
person making one up that everyone else in the circle mirrors. 

I find myself entangled in thinking up gestures and sounds before my turn, and then 
trying to blank my mind in order to be “spontaneous.” I tell Ruth about this, and she says, 
“Plan it!” and I try that and become even more confused. Then she suggests, 
“Focus on everyone else, not yourself, and let it happen.” This unlocks the door.

She gives us a talk about how she teaches, that she will be focusing on form, and 
correcting form, as if we were learning Tai Chi, and that the corrections are not to be 
taken personally. Then we launch into a sound and movement mirroring exercise. 
I immediately notice myself judging my partner for not moving accurately to my sounds. 
I also notice how I become self-conscious when I even think Ruth is watching me.

***

Day Two

We meet in the Zendo for our private guided-meditation hour with Barbara 
before breakfast.

During the first improvisation session of the day, I try to practice detachment. 
I am irritated with myself and with fellow students–our struggle for approval, the 
tension in our bodies, how our desire to be good thwarts us from being supple, 
being present. I feel the judgments well up and I… try… to… detach.

Today I want to leave, to escape. There is no clock in the yurt. Throughout both of 
the sessions on this day, I find myself craning my neck at odd angles trying to catch 
a glimpse of Ruth’s watch. She notices. I confess to my obsession with time.

Ruth says, “It’s all about intention. Intend to be here for the two hours and that’s it. 
You have to master your instrument and then you can be free.”

My intention is to stay with this workshop no matter what. My intention is to have compassion 
for all of the participants, including myself. But my mind is full of judgments and I judge 
myself for being in my head. Therefore, I add another intention: I intend to be in my body.

This morning we experiment with sudden movement, gradual movement, and stillness. 
We improvise moving as rocks, lightening, falling leaves, electricity, thunder, mud. 
Then we try speaking from these states. We move again, motivated this time by shifts 
in perception of the impulses in our bodies. Then we pair up and direct each other to shift.

I become frustrated and embarrassed because I misunderstand the directions, and I 
melt down, crying, and abruptly quit the exercise. This is the first of what would become 
numerous crying fits in Action Theater  classes over the year; the tears loosening the 
glue of my tightly held beliefs, expectations, ideas about myself, and about the “right” 
way to do anything.

Ruth comes over to me and asks me to explain what happened and as I do, the fit 
passes. I rejoin the group. During the next trio exercise, I feel myself drop out, go 
mute. I report this to Ruth and she has me try again. I am glad to be thrown back into the 
muck to work it out.

During the discussion preceding the second improvisation session of the day, Ruth tells us 
she experiences terror before each performance and questions why she still does it. I find 
that encouraging. I’ve only been practicing Action Theater for 1-1/2 days, but I decide that I want 
to sign up for the next workshop.

This afternoon, we work with techniques for developing narrative. I only have the urge to check
Ruth's watch once. When the two hours are up, I am shocked, just as I had been at the end of 
this morning's meditation, that so much time has passed. 

***

Day Three

This morning, my meditation, which had been ecstatic at previous sittings, drags. I am 
annoyed by voices outside, other people’s movements, a fly.

Today we practice shifting physical narratives, and we learn the empty vessel score.
We also do paired and solo physical sculptures. Next, we play with faces: expansive, 
contractive, expressive. I tell Ruth that I feel as if I am unlearning some improvisation survival 
habits that had been developed over the past three years and are no longer serving me. 

In retrospect, this is only the first level of unlearning, as after years of Action Theater practice 
I find that I have to continually unlearn increasingly complex survival tactics; each level of 
skill coming with another peeling away of the previous level’s newly acquired defenses, as the 
mind and body fight against being present and seen, and then fight to break free of 
being hidden.

Tonight, Ruth teaches a class for the Buddhism students living at the monastery, and we are 
invited to watch. Twenty mostly young, giggling bodhisattvas are led through the paces. In 
discussion, one of them asks about the internal judge. Ruth tells him: “Noticing the judge is 
fine, as long as you don’t beat yourself up.”

***

Day Four 

My brain is fried. My knee is out of whack from sitting in meditation. But I feel good.

In the morning we work on responding. We move around the yurt with our eyes closed, 
then with eyes open. We move in patterns with a shared footfall rhythm. We practice 
contrasting shifts: sound against movement against physical narrative.

In the afternoon we take turns doing solos: speaking while seated in a chair, facing 
the audience, with emphasis on listening to the rhythm and relationship of the silences 
between the words. Then we practice associating words, images, experimenting with our 
eyes open versus closed.

Throughout the week, during the hours between practice sessions, meditations, and meals; 
we have been free to roam about the monastery, hike in the valley, wallow in the hot spring-fed 
Japanese baths, or swim in the river. So far, I have visited the baths during every single 
free period. I’ve never been cleaner.

On this day, during one of our breaks, I finally hike to the Narrows, a natural waterslide and 
swimming hole far down the river, away from the Zendo and cabins.

It’s a little scary for me, making my way there, clambering over the rocks alone. But I start to 
treat it as an improvisation, and slowly it begins to seem as though one rock is leading me 
to the next, each whispering, “Put your foot here.” The slide turns out to be a lot bigger and 
longer than I’d expected, much too big for my taste. I peel off my clothes, paddle around a 
bit in the quieter eddies, and get dressed to leave.

But at the last minute, I shift; I turn back to the river, strip again, and jump in at the top, sliding 
all the way down, down, down.

Tonight, in our post-dinner discussion, I share my discovery of the connection between 
improvisation and Zen. “When you are meditating, you are resting on something, a kind 
of ground. That is the same thing you are resting on in improvisation.”

***

Day Five 

Today is our last day. I don’t want to go home.

In the morning, our last improvisation session of the week, we begin with the sounders and 
movers score. At one point, Ruth and I do a sound duet together. The way that her every action 
is enlivened enlivens me. I am almost overwhelmed by how energizing it feels to share and 
contrast rhythms and tones with her.

Next, we do dream scores. During my dream, everyone in the group comes at me barking like 
dogs, some playful, some attacking. Eventually one becomes a cat and as she and I turn away 
from the dogs, another becomes my inner voice but tells me it cannot be trusted.

***

I did take the month-long workshop that August, which led me to the six-week that fall, and the 
month-long February after that, and…

Nine years later, I am still taking workshops, practicing in the studio, performing, 
sometimes dipping a toe into teaching and directing. The voices in my head have 
learned to vary their content, and I have learned how to work with them, play with them, entertain 
them, let them entertain me.

Leaping off into the void, experiencing the death and rebirth of ideas, of selves, seems to make 
the next leap that much less intimidating. It does get easier. And harder, as my desire for 
transcendence continues to just so slightly outpace the pleasure of my recent successes, 
always teasing me forward, into presence.