Patricia Harrelson

I first learned about making the abstract physical during a seminar offered by Paul Lisicky, one of my instructors at Antioch University.  We took the study of “show don’t tell” deeper, looking at how writers make the body–its sensations and movement– integral to an image. My understanding of “embodiment” and writing deepened when I read Gayle Brandeis‘ book Fruitflesh.

During a recent trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, I revisited the power of physicality in writing while taking part in an actor’s workshop. Our workshop focused on how an audience views a play through a cultural lens. We did a number of exercises to get in touch with cultural and societal concepts, particularly those in the last 60 years, and then we looked closely at language in the plays we would be seeing, teasing out specific images and working with them.

Most importantly, we got actively involved with the imagery. For instance, in one activity we were broken into groups to study a small passage from “Midsummer’s Night Dream.” Our instructions were to chose a line of text and create a tableau that expressed that text in terms of the culture and thinking of the 1950s. What was most interesting was the process of finding a way to express the words visually so that our audience (the rest of the class) would get it. Here is my group’s line of text and a picture of our tableau:

Egeus speaking to the Duke after Hermia, his daughter, has told him she wishes to marry Lysander rather than Demetrius, his choice for her:

Egeus:  “As she is mine, I may dispose of her.”

We made the image graphic by having one of the men shove a woman’s head into a trash can while the other women cowered submissively nearby, with one exception.  In the background, this woman was “just” stepping up onto a chair, beginning to rise above such patriarchal behavior, to signify the rumbling of change in the 1950s.

I walked away from this workshop considering how effective ACTING is in feeling the meaning behind an image. We actually took the line of text into our bodies as we worked with it.

Now my question is how can I bring this “knowing” into my writing? How do I get more engaged physically as I write? I have a few ideas but wonder if you, dear readers, have your thoughts about embodiment and writing?