The Amygdala: Misorgi and a First Look into Music and the Brain

We began this first session by practicing a body cleansing exercise called 'Misorgi' a Japanese technique used by East Asian actors and pioneered in the west by Yoshi Oida. The exercise focuses on cleaning the 9 holes (although we focus on the first eight...); these consist of:

• The Eyes
• The Nose
• The Ears
• The Mouth
• The Hara (belly button)

The idea is that by taking some clean water and cleaning each of these areas, the body becomes open and cleansed, free of any doubt or evil that has accumulated before the rehearsal, and allows us to be free as actors. It is based on an Indian fairytale of a God that tried to better himself by attempting to adapt himself to live under the sea. The Hara is particularly important in this exercise, as eastern traditions believe the Hara is the location of the soul. It is the reasoning behind "hara kiri", the practice of samurai splitting their gut open after losing their honour in battle. It is also why the belly button piercing is so prominent in eastern cultures as it symbolises the importance of the soul.

After this we looked at Smardhi; attempting to totally focus on one simple task at a time, and committing to this task completely. This is calming yet frustrating, as it eliminates all negative thoughts from the brain yet is very difficult to achieve.

Finally to complete our warm up we attempted Walking into Nothing, a Peter Brook experiment in which we had to walk around the room with our eyes closes in order to enhance our spacial awareness and connect with the other actors in the room.

We then looked at our first practitioner, Brian Eno, who has worked on a lot of interesting musical projects. One in particular interested me, 'Music for Airports', because it was designed to relax those in a stressful environment, something that incorporates both music and the brain.

We then did an experiment on ourselves based on music and different stimulus. Stuart played us four different pieces and we were allowed to write, draw, or move to the music. 

• 'Winter Wind' by Chopin my first instinct was to draw as it is what I felt most comfortable with. I started by swirling my pen around the paper, however, i found that this wasn't satisfying me so I moved to the movement section and begun to let the music move me. I found it felt like I was being swept up and down the room, twirling and moving. It became less controlled as the piece spirals into a more and more hectic melody
• 'Goodbye Irene' by Lead Belly This piece was slightly calmer, I wrote a story for this and it did end up being about sleeping in a forest, which is interesting because I did not know the name of the piece at the time
• 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' by Judy Garland I was very familiar with this piece, so I found myself preempting what was going to happen, which felt like it slightly ruined the experiment. I ended up slow waltzing with an invisible partner.
• 'It's Not Unusual' by Tom Jones This piece brought everyone together in the movement section as it was so upbeat and lighthearted at it's surface, and I ended up dancing between partners in a swinging, clicking movement.

It was interesting to see that I was most drawn to the movement section; it is obvious which area is most affected when I hear music.