Imagining Resurrection

 While we are in the season of Incarnation, the part of the Jesus story that further confirms the goodness of our body is resurrection. It's not just good for the time we live this life, but there's the promise/hope of something carrying into eternity. 

What we know from the gospel stories about the resurrected Jesus is that he was not confined by laws of physics. Jesus would appear in locked rooms, dissolve at being recognized, solid enough to be touched and eat fish. 

For years now, I've thought of the resurrected body as having properties akin to sound. Sound is not solid and passes through walls, but you can also feel it. Loud sounds or sounds at particular frequencies can shake or break more solid objects. 

I've more recently started wondering about the phenomenon of stage presence. Last post, I spoke about projecting voice (breath) to the back of a theater, but we've probably all had the experience of someone who enters a stage and fills the room with presence, before any word is spoke. We call it stage presence, but I've wondered if it isn't also a spiritual things, a way that foreshadows our resurrection, when we'll be able to enter rooms or be present across distances.

Earlier in the pandemic, I took a few Gaga classes online. Gaga is a movement practice that was developed by dancer/choreographer Ohad Naharin. He developed it, in part, to reclaim the joy and pleasure of movement, which can be lost when it becomes your job. Anyway, as I took the class, I was pleased and encouraged to hear the leader say something like, "now project your movement and body beyond the walls." In words that I hadn't used, he was stating some of the things I've been saying about practicing stage presence. Indeed, my version of that practice is called "practicing resurrection." It's not just my absurd idea. It's also something other people think about (without the Jesus language). 

Because there's a lot of absurd religious ideas here and there, I feel compelled to say I don't think of this as literal or even scientific. It's an image I've worked with as a performer. It's imagination. And I think imagination makes a difference. An actor who can imagine the emotional state of the character embodies the character in a way that is not accomplished by an actor of less imagination. Imagining the way our presence fills an auditorium surely affects our state presence. 

Like the vocal projection I wrote about yesterday, I've also shifted in my thinking about stage presence as a gift upon the performer, but more a gift of the performer on the audience. It's a sharing of the person, physical and spiritual. It might be used to say "look at me!" but it's also a way to love the audience.