I was told that as actors it is important that the audience and your body feel the emotion, your head must be aware of your presence on stage. How does one ‘act naturally’? Something I find hard to describe in words but found the answer to through movement meditation, a form that the Tuida artists practice. The rule of movement meditation is to focus on the ‘chakra’ right below your navel and think of it as the center of creativity. It is this point that makes you move the way you move. Rule: you are not allowed to feel any emotion. We actors think we know it all. Heh. I went from posing like Arjuna straight out of battle, to Pina Baush moving like the wind, to Roxie being manoeuvred by Richard Gere in the puppet song in Chicago. Which made me think, is it really that hard to just be normal? Picking the essence of every character and their thought, making very subtle corrections to the spine and voice, discovering new muscles and movement in my body everyday…there is so much I have learnt, corrected and re-corrected already, and I’m only half way done. Amongst all this learning and un-learning I’m finally fulfilling my long time wish to learn a percussion instrument as well. After rehearsals the musicians bring in all the knick knacks and we jam together. I’ve taken to the Korean percussion instrument ‘Jhanggu’ that looks like a sand clock and our very own ‘Tappu’ from Tamil Nadu. I find it ironical that I get to work with Chennai based actors and learn South Indian Instruments in another country.