The Direction of Intention

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Ten years ago I met Jack Yantis at the Seattle Children’s Theatre. I’d just moved to Seattle and knew almost no one in the city. I wheedled an invitation to attend a workshop for actor-teachers led by Jack. He guided us through a series of simple movement experiences that were brilliant, illuminating and fun. With minimal structure he had us moving through space with grace and abandon. Above all else, I remember how the group moved from a single impulse, many people moving as one being.

The first thing we did that night was to find stillness. “Allow your movement to come from stillness,” Jack said. “Let your movement return to stillness.” Just like life! We come from stillness and return to it. “The stillness is available to you,” he said, “you just need to find it, remember where you left it.” He laughed. Jack was filled with mischief and laughter.

“Finding stillness” is a great phrase and is harder to do than you might imagine. Busy lives and busy minds afford little stillness. Unless you have a meditation practice, stillness is probably something you avoid. In stillness you discover things about yourself; in stillness you uncover things about yourself and then you have to act on them or choose to deny them.

Stillness means more than to simply stand still. Jack guided us; we found it first in our bodies, in our limbs, in our faces, and finally in our minds. And in that lovely stillness, there was an impulse that was basic and undeniable, it was the impulse to move toward each other, to move with each other. It was not a personal impulse, not individual, it was shared, it was bigger than any single person in the room. And, when we followed the impulse, our dance amplified the space between us, as if the space were moving us instead of the other way around.

This is the impulse that the artist understands. This is the impulse behind true power. It is basic and undeniable that if you are capable of getting out of your own way, of allowing your life to come from the stillness, that life will move you toward others, toward fulfillment and the empowerment of all. As Jack taught us, “The stillness is available to you. You just need to remember where you left it.”

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