Viola Spolin

POINT OF CONCENTRATION:

Although Spolin does not give an exacting definition – P.O.C. is an isolated focus, or artistic discipline, used to build up a segment at a time toward an integrated whole. She does write:

“This singleness of focus on a moving point used in solving the problem…frees the student for spontaneous action and provides the vehicle for an organic, rather than a cerebral experience. It makes perceiving, rather than preconception possible and acts as a springboard to the intuitive.” Page 22

 Through the use of Point of Concentration, we move in our prayer study from specific words to specific themes to the whole prayer, and eventually onward to the whole service. Although discussions about God are always in order,

P.O.C. suggest limiting them to specific points within the prayer.

P.O.C. allows for discussion – concentration on specific problems of prayer –

i.e. love of God, which involves the issues of love-hate, how does God express love? Is love expressed by saying no? Dealing, for example, with hate, having students experience feeling hatred, and then love, might well have them learn that we can legitimately get angry at loved ones.

The goal of teaching worship and of specific prayers, whether in Hebrew or in English, to give the students the background for the specific aspects of the prayer script under scrutiny, so that they will be able to read these prayers with all their being – heart, soul, might, intellect, emotions, and imagination.

PHYSICALIZATION

Spolin:              

“The term ‘physicalization’ describes the means by which material is presented to the student on a physical, non-verbal level, as opposed to an intellectual or psychological approach. ‘Physicalization’ provides the student with a personal concrete experience (which he can grasp) on which his further development depends,  and gives the teacher and student a working vocabulary necessary to an objective relationship.”

“Reality, as far as we know, can only be physical, in that it is received and communicated through the sensory equipment. The physical is the known, and through it we may find our way to the unknown, the intuitive, and perhaps beyond, to man’s spirit, itself.” Page 15-16

Understanding a prayer is best accomplished when the student is able to replicate the concrete human emotions which underlie the particular prayer. Through an in-class shared experience, the class is able to abstract and transfer itself toward the written prayer text. In the process, the individual words become alive and part of the organic interaction between the worshipper and the audience.

The Audience is GOD – The self in the universe