Use of emotion in performing

[Rubicon]

I was talking with an IEI friend about how we go about expressing emotion in performance. She said that she accesses memory of when she felt the desired emotion and uses that. I do that too, but find it hard to make a remembered emotion come across intensely if I'm currently in a mood that is at odds to it... I have to colour it with my present feelings. The IEI didn't relate to that - said she just planned to perform a certain way and did. That's pretty completely opposite to what I try to do. That would steal the most enjoyable part of performing away from me, which is to forget every take I've done before when I'm up there and come up with a spontaneous emotional interpretation on the spot. I figure that using my current emotional take of the music is a foolproof way of presenting a seamless and believable emotional experience anyway.

This performer I think is ILE says that her technique is to make up a whole detailed scenario in her head and think about that while she's performing. Not sure if that's typical for ILEs..

An IEE person says she can just imagine she's feeling the emotion she wants to on the spot, so that she's actually feeling what it looks like she is on stage.

Anyone relate? What about other types? I'm just talking about acting in general btw.. so if you haven't performed before, I'd think you could imagine what technique you would use from situations where you've .. uh.. pulled the proverbial wool over someone's eyes through use of emotion.

[Gilly]

An IEE person says she can just imagine she's feeling the emotion she wants to on the spot, so that she's actually feeling what it looks like she is on stage.

This is most like my approach of any mentioned, although I try to really transpose myself fully into the character's situation, to attempt to think and feel like I am in their shoes; I basically brainwash myself for a moment. "To fool others, you must first fool yourself." But I, like your IEE friend, do tend to "choose" how to feel when acting.

I do try to make my interpretation spontaneous, but at the same time I always have an idea of how the scene "should be;" making it feel spontaneous is just a way of making it seem more genuine. I always know ahead of time what each line should sound like, what the general feel of each line is, etc. I would analogize my acting to leading people down a path: I want them to believe that I know generally where I'm going, and am worth following, but they also have to feel like I have never walked down this path before, either; otherwise, they will lose the excitement of not knowing where they are headed.

I have tried the method of "remembering" an emotion, but it's just not as powerful for me; it feels less genuine than simply causing/asking myself to feel it spontaneously. If I am going to feel an emotion, I'm just going to feel it; thinking about my dead grandfather when I want to cry just seems disingenuous to me.

[Rubicon]

I do try to make my interpretation spontaneous, but at the same time I always have an idea of how the scene "should be;" making it feel spontaneous is just a way of making it seem more genuine. I always know ahead of time what each line should sound like, what the general feel of each line is, etc. I would analogize my acting to leading people down a path: I want them to believe that I know generally where I'm going, and am worth following, but they also have to feel like I have never walked down this path before, either; otherwise, they will lose the excitement of not knowing where they are headed.

That's interesting. That's my goal too.. Not going down that path at all myself before the event is a lazy way of ensuring that. :-P

I have tried the method of "remembering" an emotion, but it's just not as powerful for me; it feels less genuine than simply causing/asking myself to feel it spontaneously. If I am going to feel an emotion, I'm just going to feel it; thinking about my dead grandfather when I want to cry just seems disingenuous to me.

lol.. I'd rather not bring my dead grandfather into it either. :-P I just go with the flow and see what connects itself with the music. Maybe some specific memories will come up, so I'll go with them.

[Gilly]

Well, I have no qualms about bringing my grandfather into it; I just feel shame rather than sadness when I misuse the memory, so it's simply not useful to me.

[Galen]

By 'performing', I assume we're talking about theatrical performances, yes?

For me, emotion in acting isn't about 'choosing' emotions per se. Rather, it's more about letting the emotion choose me. I guess you could call it empathy for the character, but I try to become the person I'm portraying. It's like losing track of one's self for the sake of the character being presented, almost a passive alteration to my internal psychological workings.

[DirectorAbbie]

When I perform, I become my character. It's called a play for a reason.

[Serious Name]

I'm not an actor (quite the opposite, I spend my time lurched over a book full of mathematics and/or physics), but the few times I've had to act I seriously just think about how I would react and go with that.

I can't summon emotions on the spot, I find that hard to do even in real life situations I imagine I would plan my responses to everything like your IEI friend.

I'm an ILE if I remember correctly.

[Galen]

[Rubicon]

By 'performing', I assume we're talking about theatrical performances, yes?

anything performance-related really

[silverchris9]

I think deciding how you're going to feel is good preliminary work, but once you get on stage it's all about just being and reacting, etc. If you feel like you're losing the character, slipping away from the situation, you can grasp onto that emotion or motivation or whatever which might launch you back into character. But the best acting comes when you genuinely feel an impulse and then act on it, rather than enacting a previously determined schema.

When I'm acting, I think I've unconsciously drifted towards a very very mild version of method acting, insofar as I like to walk around in character to sort of get a feel for who the character is. This will lead to certain revelations about how a character will react in a given situation, but I think the best thing to do is to let everything you realize like that inform your understanding of who the character is. Then, when you get on stage, you just do what that character would do. In other words, a well-written script doesn't tell you what your motivation is so much as it tells you who you are, and then everything you say and do in the script should be what naturally happens based on the set of external events (i.e., plot) happening to a specific interior orientation (i.e., character). Of course, most authors aren't perfect observers of human nature, so you'll have to fudge it a bit in certain places, but I think that bit about the who-you-are reacting to the what-happens is the real core of the thing.

On a more practical level though, I can just make myself feel something (put myself into a particular state), and then support/modulate/continue that feeling or state by thinking about what's happening to the character. I had to play Frankenstein once, and so I had to be really scared. So first, I put myself into a "scared" state, and then I supported that state with thoughts about a) how the monster was going to come an attack me, and b) how all the people around me knew about the monster, my guilt, etc. It's easy to substitute this "being in a state" for "being in a character" though, which is one of my (many) flaws as a performer.

Also, I sometimes think about providing objective correlatives via actions, because then it's easier for the audience to latch onto things. But normally I don't automatically think that way.