Etude 2 - Activity

In the first etude, we worked with basic physical actions. Now, let's expand that to include ongoing activities.

But first, let's review a bit of Newton's laws of motion. In particular, the law of inertia:

Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed.

Newton in mind, let us define an activity as a physical action that continues until it reaches its natural conclusion or is interrupted by another action.

For this exercise and the others similar to it, I won't go into detail for each step like I did before (Go to the first etude to get the overall idea). The only thing that really changes is the word bank. To make everyone's life easier, here are some examples:

read, write, eat, drink, play,
sleep, grow, transform, die

Not the most extensive word bank in the world, but I hope you get the idea.

Naturally, this raises the question: Can't we just use basic movements as activities? In principle, certainly. These exercises aren't rungs on a ladder so much as concentric circles. But to get the most from the exercise, it might help to expand your "movement vocabulary" to include actions that are explicitly activities.

Doing this exercise, what I noticed about activities, as opposed to simple actions, is that they have more innate dramatic material. The Newtonian aspect introduces the possibility of conflict in the form of obstruction or interruption. It's not always the case, and there's no need to deliberately go for it in this exercise (in fact, I know I didn't), but being aware of it sometimes gives you a lovely surprise if it shows up.

I will follow with a practical example after I finish with the next etude.