Lessons from The Viewpoints Book

by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau:

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When you cannot see

What is happening,

Do not stare harder.

Relax and look gently

With your inner eye.

- Lao Tzu

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The development of an artist is related to her/his ability to perceive differences.  [...] Categorising the world makes it a safer place, because through it we tame the untamed world around us.  All things, once categorised, become less threatening to us, and can be safely filed away.  Untaming the world and allowing the differences between people and between streets and houses to be felt and acknowledged mark the growth of an artist.  The capacity to differentiate moment to moment is an actor's most basic and critical skill.

p.32

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[The difference between Expressive and Descriptive qualities]

The sculptor Constantin Brancusi described his attempt to get at the Expressive rather than Descriptive qualities of his art by asking:

'When you see a fish, you do not think of its scales, do you?  You think of its speed, its floating, flashing body see through water.  Well, I've tried t express just that.  If I made fins and eyes and scales, I would arrest its movement and hold you by a pattern, or a shape of reality.  I want just the flash of its spirit.'

p.146 

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Hold on tightly, let go lightly.

Dive into any endeavour with strength, fortitude and intention, but at the same time be willing to adjust.  Know what you want, and be completely unattached to getting it.

p.161

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Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what is next or how.  The moment you know how, you begin to die a little.  The artist never entirely knows, we guess.  We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.

- Agnes de Mille, p.161

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I think I have more but I forgot to underline stuff so I'll have to reread it and try and find the other stuff I thought was valuable.

Sometimes I think that I'm at drama school in order to learn how to live.  Theatre, composition and art are like religions for me.  I wonder if I were born religious whether I would be as devoted to my religious studies as I am to my artistic ones...