Qualities of Movement: Degrees of Resistance - Molding, Flowing, Flying, Radiating

Previously I blogged on expansion/contraction, known as "what" the energy is doing. Today I'm working on exploring Qualities of Movement (QOM) also known as Molding, Flowing, Flying, Radiating (MFFR).  These are known as "how" the energy is moving (physiologically and psychologically); expressing the how of expansion/contraction. MFFR have to do with the different degrees of resistance that the movement is met with. According to the NMCA Playbook, images of the four elements are used to aid the actor in imagery: Molding (earth), Flowing (water), Flying (air), and Radiating (light/fire). Each level of resistance can also have a gradient scale. For example, molding can start as rock and morph into clay or mud. This allows a wider range of actable qualities of movement. It's also important to note that not only movement can be viewed in the qualities, but ones thoughts, emotions, desires, characterizations, and gesture can be also viewed as either molding, flowing, flying or radiating.


Today I experimented with the use of MFFR and application of this tool on a classical monologue.


Oreo Cookie Flyback - 
Overall, what did I like about using the tool?
What would I add next time to make it better?
What was my favorite moment?


MFFR (QOM):
Overall, I deeply enjoyed the ease and playfulness that MFFR provided me as an artist. My higher creative ego was immediately engaged and I began to feel this sense of creative work radiating my exercise. This sensation allowed me to be more aware of my energy body today, as I layered today's work with the foundation of my discoveries from expansion/contraction. By focusing more consciously on the energy body I was able to experience "how"  the expansion/contraction energy moves. As a result, holding onto the image of expansion/contraction while applying MFFR aided in my ability to be more cognizant of the energy body and all other impulses, imagery, sensations and thoughts that were resonating within me. Moreover, it was thrilling to not only move physically but applying the tools to my inner life - molding my thoughts, emotions flowing, desires flying, and radiating any other quality elongating within me at the time. Veiling this tool was very helpful in creating characters that simply evolved from simple use of the tool.

Even though my focus on the energy body was better today than yesterday, I still sense that adding more focus on the energy body would deepen the exercise for me. There were times where I was focused on whatever thoughts or images popped that I subconsciously disengaged with the energy body. Adding more voice work to the exercises to see how this tool would influence the voice and speech patterns, in my mind, would make the exercise tastier/better for me. Moreover, playing with various tempos and rhythms, I think, would surely provide a level of surprise and possibly evoke emotional nuances that I would not have imagined just by doing the QOM in purest form.

My favorite moment was in the use of the tool on a monologue. I found the application amusing and thrilling! There were several discoveries I found that brought a level of playfulness and excitement to my work. Consequently, I used Hamlet's "To be, or not to be..." speech and discovered many emotional nuances by simply veiling the tool and choosing to apply it on a psychological level. The results were staggering as I, for example, chose to mold various sections of Hamlet's speech and the image of the tool created a sense of power and definitiveness that radiated from me. Furthermore, when I shifted to flowing, the character of Hamlet became more airy, a little lighter - which was quite humourous! Needless to say, the results for Flying and Radiating were also amusing and exciting to play.

In a nutshell, finding the discovery of being able to use the MFFR tool psychologically brought favorable moments. Prior to this find I merely used the tool on a more physiological level and only applied the tool to a scene or monologue as to how the character would physically move. I will continue to use this tool in both ways and dig deeper for richer ways to express the "HOW" of a character's energy - physically and emotionally! Great day of exploration!

**Late Addition to Blog: