Work without “spine” feels terrible and hollow…
Imagine a human body without a spine, a wobbly, squishy sac of muscles, tissue and floating bones congealed into a semi-mobile blob, the same texture of the jar of neon “goop” you used to stick your finger in as a child. It is weak. It lack shape. It feels wrong.
With a spine, there is always something to fall back on. When your limbs are too tired to hold your body erect, your spine is there. When your day couldn’t get any worse, your friends and family (or support system of your choosing) are just a call away. In the same vein, when a rehearsal goes poorly or an audition slips my grasp, I can touch base with the concrete thing that is my spine.
I recognize now that I used to try to function without a spine.
Each song I worked on and scene I prepared for class and auditions had one intention behind it: to be “good”. The spine, the purpose of each of my creative endeavors was to showcase my talent or to flex my knowledge; this came from an extreme insecurity that was a product of my perfectionistic attitude and my immense desire to be liked and adored.
While this insecurity defined my pubescent years, I have since begun to realize how incredibly fulfilling and reassuring it is to have a solid foundation for each creative process. In this past semester of classes, my final one in my undergraduate career, I went into auditions for SWEENEY TODD. I had done my homework, all the appropriate preparation and learning of music, etc., etc… but for the first time I let something other than “Allie’s Desire to Please and Do the Right Thing” serve as the backbone to my character. I recognized that Mrs. Lovett wanted the love and affection of Sweeney, not unlike my young self-longed for the adoration of my peers. She, an incredibly intelligent woman, knew that Sweeney was her one-way-ticket to the loving family she always wanted.
While I can’t say it was this spine that got me the role, I can say it was the least amount of “Allie…” that has ever been in an audition room with me. And, when rehearsals began, I depended a helluva lot on that spine- made of love and light and pure dedication- to keep me grounded as I chipped away at the challenging material.
Other iterations of spines are my vocal warm-ups; this succession of lip trills, straw exercises, and hydrating techniques evolves constantly but always places my mind and body in the zone to sing. This ritual, like regular prayer, gets skipped on occasion but is never forgotten.
As Twyla Tharp offers in Exercise #21 (called “Spinal Tap” in her book The Creative Habit) I have taken a custom to re-watching some of my favorite TV and theatrical performances to look for the spine of their work… is it in the relationship? In the technique of the sing, or the style of the music? Sometimes I cannot guess, and sometimes I muse just for the fun of it and imagine what I would do with the same material. That’s what makes different renditions and casts so thrilling; no two people perform a role the same way because, at the core, they are solidly unique.
What is your creative spine? What role does Spine play in your process?
