Work in Progress: Journey 1

I’ve begun a new project I’m calling “15 Women with the Same Face.” It’s a solo show I’m crafting based on the 15 Archetypes described in Janet Rodger’s and Frankie Armstrong’s book Acting and Singing with Archetypes. I was exposed to the book and archetype work when I was in my third year of theatre school. The work is based around group exercises lead by a teacher who takes us through what is essentially very physically involved guided meditations. They are immersive stories we insert ourselves into to access archetypes with which we’re innately familiar. It’s based on work from Commedia Dell’arte, Mask Work, and Jungian Psychology. I was immediately hooked after my cohort went on our first journey, but didn’t get to do much beyond that one semester. Fast forward a couple years and I’m looking for the basis for devising a new work, and I thought of the archetypes.

Now my acting cohort dissipated a while ago and I was surprised to find the work is not practiced as widely as I would expect, but I wanted to experience the archetype journey’s again and create character’s based on those journeys. So I made some modifications for the work to be something I could do on my own. I recorded myself reading the archetype journeys myself then edited them so I could be following the journey while I also lead myself in the exercises. Here’s a sample:

Recording and editing took a bit of time to do, but I the first track came out pretty good and was a useful tool for me. Tomorrow I’ll be sharing video I took of myself going on the archetype journey and sharing my notes and more about the process.

Sincerely,

Madeline