Cat photos are just about as cute as cat videos, aren’t they? I hope so…I took this picture of the delightful Chicken Tikka last spring at my friend Heather’s house. I was fascinated by the kitty’s feeling of safety underneath this makeshift dwelling that was literally a large piece of paper folded accordion-like and adorned with iconic Easter themes (bunnies, Easter eggs, pastel colours, bright green grass). There were some little polished pebbles around the floor, that Tikka would sometimes come out and bat around, and now and again we could tempt her to emerge if we petted her with the steel brush (!). But by and large, she was happiest inside her little Den of Safety Illusion.
Which brings me to today’s topic. My first two weeks of teaching Creative Process techniques to the opera students are now done, and I’m in the process of reading through and responding to their reflections on this activity. It’s intriguing to me how deeply invested we all get in the final “product” and the race toward it, rather than being present in the process of getting there (it IS called Creative PROCESS after all…). In reflection after reflection, students ruminated on how their favourite session was the culminating one where we “brought it all together” and expressed some frustration and “not getting it” during the phases where we were just exploring, sensing the space we’re working in and being asked to investigate what their relationship is to it, to others, to themselves. Physically. Through sensation. Feelings.
I frequently ask students “how did that feel?” And more often than not, the response begins with “I think…” Now that they know that the answer I’m interested in starts with “I feel…”, they’ll do the stealth move of “I think I felt…”! But seriously, folks: being asked to truly live in sensation, in awareness of our bodies and where stuff lives inside of us, or even on the surface of our skin, the feeling of our clothing–it turns out that these are some of the trickiest excavations of all. We aren’t used to paying attention to those matters; we’ve been taught, indoctrinated even, that we must ignore these signals because they get in the way of “focusing” and “paying attention”. They also might indicate discomfort, and we sure don’t like that. So, like Chicken Tikka, we retreat to our safe space, where we can conveniently observe the world at a distance and just wait till the danger passes.
Here’s the thing: vocal technique can never be divorced from feeling, sensation and physical connection, because it’s about human communication. It’s the most primal way in which we express our deepest needs and desires to the world. And honestly, it’s what we pay money for when we go to hear a live performance. We want to watch someone open up and dig deep. It’s what we most fear, but what we most long for at the same time.