As Einstein said,
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
An image is a key to a character, to a scene , to a piece of music, to a world. Using images is so transformative you can, with ease, become someone else.
When we were children we can all remember being told we were ‘imaginative’, like it was something a little disturbing, a little delicate to have access to this strange place.….it somehow implied an inability to really connect to the everyday, and the cruelty which was sure to come our way if we became too fanciful and lost, as if we would lose touch with ‘reality’ altogether.
What many adults of that time did not realise is that understanding, respecting and developing imagination actually equipped us to deal with the problems of the everyday world. Not only that of course, you were not either ‘imaginative’ or not imaginative’; this was something you could develop through the way you saw the world, and, as Michael Chekhov explored, through concentration. Those of us who had troubling and difficult childhoods know this dream-world was not only an escape but a logic, a way of actually finding solutions to the world that we were living with. There was a way to connect our images into conscious thoughts, feelings and impressions which gave us a depth and richness.
And of course it is vital for us as creative artists, or we will be trapped forever in our immediate life, our immediate response to elements of all our characters. If we want to believe that we have a greater potential for different characters, we need our imaginations.
An analogy I suggest is when we read a novel and then we watch the movie of the book. The movie is great because it means we can sit back and watch the imagination of others lead us. But it is not our imaginative life which powers our creation. We are passive. When we read the book we are co-creators with the author. Imagination, rather than putting us into a dream state, makes us active participants in the real world.
For an actor or performer of any kind, the trick is to connect the image to our world , to make it manifest; for the artist to be a conduit for what this image can offer the artist and his/her audience, to enable this image to transform them into someone else.
In my next online course, Image Power, which begins on the 24th April at 4.30 Irish time (once per week for four weeks) through a section of the Michael Chekhov Technique we will explore these possibilities using images for mood, character, and atmosphere…
Email chekhovtpi@gmail.com to book your place and visit www.chekhovtrainingandperformanceireland.com
Max Hafler - Radiating /Receiving 