As a group of theater students crawl around on their hands and knees in the classroom, another day begins in Kate Jordan's animal class.
Students who are enrolled in the class focus every detail of their bodies, voices and attitudes in representing an animal they have selected to study - from wolverines to Komodo dragons.
"It's all about breaking through the actor's inhibitions," said Jordan, an assistant professor of theater and dance. "This class gets us to push the envelope and challenge what we think of as our boundaries.
Jordan's animal class is one of the new courses offered by the theater department this year focusing on styles of theater performance. Jordan said, after taking a similar course while as an undergraduate student at Illinois State University, she had always wanted to teach an animals class. "It was the best class I ever took, even with 20 years as a professional actor in Chicago," she said. Jordan said when Don LaCasse, chairman of the department of theater and dance and a former professor of hers at Illinois State, asked her to teach a styles class, she suggested the animals course. He found students who had taken the class were more expressive, more vulnerable and less inhibited, Jordan said of LaCasse's interest in the animals class. Jordan explained the class provides the actors with the chance to commit their entire body to the animal they have chosen to characterize. "This class teaches students about every aspect of the acting craft in a way that will be entirely student generated," she said. "It is designed to give the actor an opportunity to totally commit physically, vocally and psychologically to a role through the use of a surrogate self." For students who are enrolled in the class, the method has proven to be a welcoming challenge. "It's the fun of it and letting the imagination go with it," said Rex Clifton, a sophomore who is one of two wolverines in the class. "You can relate with your animal and watch characteristics come out in other animals. It helps physically with my body and tests my muscles, and it helps mentally with my imagination. "The older we get, the more we forget that we were kids." Jordan said, unlike other theater classes, her class does not use a textbook. "The process for the class is involved and physically exhausting," she said. Jordan explained that, at the beginning of the semester, students enrolled in the class were asked to select an animal to study. The animal had to be violent, one the students would be able to see in real life and it couldn't exist in water or fly, she said about the criteria. Students were then required to heavily research the animal chosen and present a report to the class before getting down on all fours. Jordan said students in class begin their characterization of the animal in its original environment. In the class, they are told to begin at the "watering hole," where they can interact with each other, she said. The students - as animals - are currently working towards "the kill." In this scenario, Jordan explained the student in character is alone on stage and required to battle out and kill an invisible predator. In their research, they were required to discover how their animal would kill another animal, Jordan said. They then spent class time on aggression exercises, where they were taught how to react to images coming at them. "You really have to see and believe this environment," Jordan said. "It's a battle with something that's not there...and for one minute, you have to let go of the human and be the animal." Jordan said the class helps students closer examine themselves. "As actors, we're asked to delve deeply into ourselves...and this class serves that purpose well," said said. "We don't get stuck in that human stuff or our human boundaries - we let down those walls." After "the kill," the students undergo the process of evolving back in to human form based upon their animal's characteristics. They learn to walk and talk, and once they are humans they begin to interact with each other, Jordan said. Plots develop like a TV series. For every class session, the students get together, write improvisational plots and perform them, Jordan said. "The plots have to be high conflict and drama. We don't have time for nice, little tea parties," she said. The students then research and work towards finding a way in which their animal might die as a human. "We've made the characters and now we're taking them to bed," Jordan said. Several of the students in the class said they do not feel silly or embarrassed acting like an animal. "The first day we did it, it was a little scary," said senior Tony Sirk, the Komodo dragon. "But after a while, you can't wait to get back in there." The students mentioned they felt the class helped them most with their inhibitions since they are forced to become immersed in the world of the animal. "We were all challenged in the same way. What you put into it is what you'll get out of it," said senior Belle Lenius, the class's grizzly bear. "It feels like nothing else exists. For that moment, I can have the problems of a bear. "My problem is that I can't find the berries, and not that I don't have enough money or whatever." The students advise that those interested in taking the class are "serious" about acting. Lenius said it is more challenging for her since she is one of the few women in the class and is portraying the largest animal. I recommended the class to actresses who are not afraid to sweat and get dirty, she said. And, as Sirk the warns - come to play or get out of the way.
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