"As the actors moved I could feel imaginary iron filings marking out the force fileds.
"...shut your eyes and let your body feel outwards into the surrounding darkness."
"If I stand two students face to face and about a foot apart they're likely to feel a strong desire to change their body position. If they don't move they'll begin to feel love or hate as their 'space' streams into each other.To prevent these feelings they'll modify their positions until their space flows out relatively unhindered, or they'll move back so that the force isn't so powerful. High-status players will allow their space to flow into other people. Low-status players will avoid letting their space flow into ther people. ... If we wish to humiliate and degrade a low-status person we attack him while refusing to let him switch his space off."
"Imagine a man sitting neutrally and symmetrically on a bench. If he crossis les left leg over his right then you'll see his space flowing over to the right as if his leg was an aerofoil. If he rests his right arm along the back of the bench you'll see his space flowing out more strongly. If he turns his head to the right, practially all his space will be flowing in this same direction. someone who is sitting neutrally in the 'beam' will seem lower-status. Every movement of the body modifies it's space."
'fear-crouch' posture=low-status shoulders lift to protect the jugular and body curls forward to protect the underbelly.
'cherub' posture= high-status opens all the planes of the body, head turns and tilts to offer the neck, the shoulders turn the other way to expose the chest, spine arches slightly backwards and twists so shoulders and hips oppose, exposing the underbelly.High status people often adopt versions of the cerub posture. If they feel under attack they'll abandon it and straighten, but they won't adopt the fear crouch.
"When the highest-status person feels most secure he will be the most relaxed person,"
"Status can also be affected by the shape of the space you are in. The corners of couches are usually high-status, and high-status 'winners' are allowed to take them."
Walking, the more submissive person will get out of the way. Moving someone to the side like I so often do is a high-status move, instead of asking.
"This means that when two improvisers pass on a bare stage it may be possible to say where they are, even though they may not have decided on a location. The class will agree that the actors look as if they're in a hospital corridor, or in a crowded street, or passing on a narrow pavement. We judge this from the distance at which they make the first eye contact, and from the moment that they 'switch off' from each other before passing." "close" is defined by the space, on an empty moor you have to acknowledge someone else when they are within shouting distance, but in a crowded city you can physically brush against someone without interacting.
" Another way of opening people's eyes to the way the body positions assert dominance or submission by controlling space is to ask two people who have established a spatial relationship between themselves to freeze, and let the other students study them. Many students still won't understand, but if you take the two 'statues', lift them, together with their chairs, and place them on the opposite sides of each other, the change is dramatic. Their 'space' which seemed so 'natural' looks weird, and everyone can see how carefully they had adjusted their movements to fit in with each other.
I ask students (for homework!) to watch groups of people in coffee bars, and to notice how everyone's attitude changes when someone leaves or joihns a group. If you watch two people talking, and then wait for one to leave, you can see how the perosn remaining has to alter his posture. He had arranged his movements to relate to his partner's, and now that he's alone he has to change his position in order to express a relationship to the people around him"
Master-Servant
"The master-servant scene seems to befunny and entertaining in all cultures -even people who have enver seen a manservant have no difficulty in appreciating the nuances.
The relationship is not necessarily one oin which the servant plays low and the master plays high... The whole point of the master-servant scene is that both partners shold keep see-sawing."
"I teach that a master-servant scene is one in which both parties act as if all the space belonged to the master. (Johnstone's law!) An extreme example would be the eighteenth-century scientist Henry Cavendish, who is reported to have fired any servant he caught sight of!...People who are not literally masters and servants may act out the roles, henpecked husbands and dominant wives for example. The contrasts between the status played between the characters and the status played to the space fascinates the audience.
When the masters are not present, then the servantes can take full possession of the space, sprawl on the furniture, drink the brankdy, and so on...When the master is present, the servant must take care at all times not to dominate the space... You can work for someone without being 'their servant'. A servant's primary function is to elevate the status of the master. Footmen can't lean against the wal, because it's the master's wall. Servants must make no unnecessary noise or movement, because it's the master's air they're intruding on.
The preferred position for a servant is usually at the edge of the master's 'parabola of space' This is so that at any moment the master can confront him and dominate him...When the servant's duties take him into close proximity with the master he must show that he invades the master's space 'unwillingly'. If you have to confront the master in order to adjust his tie you stand back as far as possible, and you may incline your head. If you're helpign with his trousers you probably do it from the side. Crossing in front of the master the servant may 'shrink' a little, and he'll try to keep a distance. Working behind the master, brushing his coat, he can be as close as he likes, and visibly higher, but he mustn't stay out of sight of the master unless his duties require it (or unless he is very low status)
The servant has to be quiet, to move neatly, and not let his arms or legs intrude into the space around him... Other things being equal, the servant should be near a door so that he can be instantly dismissed without having to walk round the master. You can see servants edging surreptitiously into this position."
"Number Four has to keep Number Three happy while avoiding the attention of One or Two. If addressed by One or Two he must avoid any appearance of wanting to usurp THree's position. If the general speaks to a private we should expect the private to keep glancing at the sergeant. If the general lowers the sergeant the private may be secretly delighted by it he'll have to hide it, and at the time he might be expected to find it embarrassing."
"It is the lack of pecking-order that makes most crowd scenes unconvincing. The 'extras' mill about trying to look 'real', and the spaces between them are quite phoney... BY just numbering people in hierarchies so that they knew what status they were, such errosrs could be avoided."
"A good play is one which ingeniously displays and reverese the status between the characters...SHakespear is a great writer even in translation
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