My Promise to You
When You Take My
Solo Performance Boot Camp

"Tanya's Guarantee"

You have my total commitment to work with you on your show even after you return home.

Both of us will be satisfied with the script.

Guaranteed.

Warm-Ups, Solo Improvisation, Improvisational Writing, Developing Characters and The Interview Process...

Your treasure chest... the ways to develop your material.

In this chapter we will get into the heart of how to develop your solo show.

You already have everything you need to develop a solo show inside of you. This is a deep process of trust…..a surrender into the unconscious that holds all of your life experiences, stories, passions and more inside of you.

It is about allowing what your show wants to say to reveal itself through you. It is not a process of control. The deep stories inside do not come primarily from the mind. Rather, they are contained in your body and your emotional body.

By stepping back from your pre-conceived ideas of what you think you should be doing (which can create either writer’s block or empty, overly intellectual material), you allow the truest stories to come forth.

This is a practice that takes time to develop.

No matter what type of show you are drawn to doing…. I highly recommend beginning this process with your own stories from your life. It can be an enormous aspect of "opening" to yourself and finding/re-claiming your voice.

Warm ups:

Transformational Movement #1

You need a space to move in where you can be alone for this or you can do it in a group with one person at a time, getting up to do the exercise. The purpose of this is to open yourself to transforming your body/emotional body/cellular patterns so that you can open up to deeper expression in your work.

Put some music on in the background. It should not be overpowering….

Think of a pattern/block in your psyche and/or emotional body that is blocking you creatively or in any other area of your life. Move to the music and invite the energy of that pattern to fully move through you.

Do not "act it out literally".

Allow the energy to move through you until it is "spent".
Don’t use words, but you may allow sounds of anger, pain, fear etc. to move through you with along with the movement.

When you have fully expressed it (usually takes people 5-10 minutes to really surrender into it) come back to a stopping point or neutral place.

Then slowly invite in energy that will support you in transforming this old pattern into something new. Dance, stretch, pray, move slowly and organically until you experience peace, joy, happiness, serenity or another "higher" emotion to connect with you and your movements.

Example:

Yesterday I was teaching a class and demonstrated this exercise.

I was thinking about how I can give my power/energy away to others in unhealthy ways and then feel exhausted and depleted.

So I started just moving and feeling the franticness/urgency behind my energy when I do that. I began grasping with my arms up in the air. Then I put both hands on my heart and moved my arms, giving my energy away by pushing it out of me.

I did this movement until I collapsed on the floor, exhausted.

I started to cry, letting it just flow through me. Slowly, I rolled onto my back and just started to take deep breaths and see how the transformational energy wanted to move me.

My arms slowly reached up toward the ceiling. My back arched.
I felt waves of peace move me toward my feet. I twirled for a while. I slowly reached out and pulled Divine energy down into my body allowing it to move me. I danced myself out of that old pattern and into greater peace and freedom.

Solo Improvisation #1

Ground yourself in your body in a safe setting.

Take deep breaths. Begin to move….take your time...Find a repetitive movement that you can relax into….

Then begin with the words "I remember" Just keep repeating the words "I remember, I remember, I remember" over and over until it leads you into a specific story…….

If you get stuck, just keep moving (you can change the movement if you want) and come back to the original topic repeating the words, "I remember, I remember, I remember".

Use a timer for this. Set the timer for twenty minutes to begin. No matter what, keep going until the times goes off.

For example:

"I remember, I remember, I remember…….

I remember picking wild strawberries on the vetch covered hill on my grandparents land. The strawberries were sweet and sour at the same time….they were so tiny….each one felt like finding a secret jewel…..

I was really little then, maybe four or five. I popped them into my mouth one by one.

One day I was out picking strawberries barefoot…I felt something move under my feet…I looked down…It was a long black snake. I felt terror and blood rush through my body in less that a second…I screamed and screamed…..the snake glided away, under the thick vetch just as my mother came running out the door….

I remember, I remember, I remember Steven leaving for work. Steven, Steven, Steven…..he was the man who was the love of my life…Steven was leaving for work wearing a starched white shirt, a tie and slacks….he looked so handsome as always….Steven, Steven, Steven with his deep blue eyes.

Not blue like the Caribbean, but darker, piercing blue like the Arctic Sea. Cold, sometimes icy; always beautiful.

Steven was leaving for work that day and I was sitting on our velour sofa with our 4 week old baby on my lap. I was nursing her…my nipples were still bleeding on and off and I was wearing a milk stained tee shirt of his…."

As a new mother, I was completely overwhelmed.

I had an infant daughter who I loved like the sun; whole and complete. At the same time was a child who was extremely sensitive and could not be put down for one waking moment without crying desperately….

As Steven walked out the door, into the adult world he lived in,
I anticipated my day. Nursing, walking with the baby….
If she fell asleep long enough for me to take a shower, I could maybe get her packed up and go to the store to get groceries for dinner.

I felt fat, ugly and lost in my life in that moment…and something inside of me saw something inside of him that made me uneasy, restless.

I remember thinking….I’ve already lost him. Already lost him…somewhere I knew I’d already lost him.

It took two and a half years for it to materialize on the outside.

I had dropped him at the airport with our sweet, sweet two year old in tow. He was flying out to Hartford on a business trip.

He stepped on that plane. I did not know in that moment that we would never make love again. I knew only that I felt very lonely driving home.

A few days into his trip, after a seven year relationship he called me.

"I am not in love with you…have never really been in love with you….I saw a woman in the Atlanta airport and think that I could be in love with someone like that……"

The words kept spilling out of him like hot lava.

I did not hear them after a certain point. I was standing in our bedroom, looking out the window into our little courtyard. I noticed the pear tree in the courtyard. It looked fragile and it’s branches were spindly.

I had a thought run through my mind "I wonder if it will survive."

I tuned out Steven’s voice and sank slowly to the floor with the phone still in my hand. At some point I interrupted him and said
"I have to go". I hung up the phone and started to cry.

My two and a half year old daughter wandered into the room with only a sagging diaper on. "Mama?"….I looked at her…

"Come here my love and give mama a hug" …I held her sweet body in my arms…..I dialed my best friend with an SOS call.

"Please come at once. Chloe needs her diaper changed and wants a grilled cheese sandwich….Steven just left me and I cannot get up off the bedroom floor."

********************

That was me just riffing….solo improvisation is like jazz.
You just surrender into your memory…to a specific incident and see where it leads you.

Surrender is everything.

If you attempt to hold on to control, the words will not flow.
You let go and learn to trust yourself and the stories.

They are not separate from your life and they are always waiting under the surface to be told.

Let them come out through you, not attempting to lead them or tell them from your mind. This is when you are most likely to shut yourself down as an artist….It’s all about surrendering control to allow the stories that want to be told to come through you.