Monday -- Harmony College - Physical Expression

Gina takes this class. She says 'I take wrong answers'. She is a certified dog trainer. She says if you're not getting the chorus to do what you want them to do, it's up to you to fix it (it's not the dog's fault!)

Physical Expression is an aspect of Showmanship. Gina asks what we mean by physical expression:
- how you use your face and body to express the song
- face, eyes, body, posture, direction
- movement, gesture, body talking, attitude
- telling a story, communicating emotion
- connecting physical and emotional self

We brainstorm body parts that we can use for physical expression (everything, really)

Gina gets some volunteers on stage. With their backs to us they express an emotion and we guess what it is. What did they do that was the same or different? Even without seeing their faces we can guess the emotion quite easily.

On the risers the audience/judges can only see you from the torso up. Keep your hands below your waist if you're on the back row, otherwise it's distracting. Use your shoulders and torso instead.

Every time you take a breath, restate it physically - follow and feel the musical story and move wth it. In a well written song the music and lyrics go together.

Question about not much space on risers, so how to do large hand movements. Gina says if you stick out of the unit it's a problem. Ballads especially often need physical expression to be enhanced.

Question about moving on and off stage. Gina says it's not judged, for choruses, so it's a waste of time to practice.

Question about members with physical limitations, eg blind. If she's doing everything she can with her capacity and doing it on time it's no problem - it's not the disability, it's how you handle it.

Gina does an exercise with a chorus of volunteers and assorted directors. When she says move, they move; when she says stop, they stop moving. The chorus try this and say it's hard to sing when they're standing still, hard to feel the song, the sound closed down, the pitch dropped, and they lost connection with people around them. It's hard to grow the sound, and they feel they're muscling it. There's no connection with the director.

When they move the singing becomes more joyous, freer. They have more air available,

Directors felt confused and frustrated - everything disappeared, it was hard work, it felt horrible, they sounded like a choir. Vicki says it feels familiar - she's doing too much, and when the chorus did more she could do less.

Getting your chorus to do this (not move, and then move) helps them to move better and understand that it's okay to move. With practice, movement becomes more natural and unified.

Gina says three of the judges are not looking at you, and you might think if you don't move your sound will be better and you'll be rewarded; but movement improves all four of the judging categories. Go with more rather than less movement.