Kera Halbersleben was generous enough to give me five extra minutes of her Thursday night after Lucid Body Class last week. Before we sat down, I watched her debrief with her scene partner about the exercise they’d just completed. As they talked, I noticed Kera repeating the same motion with her hands. It was the motion of opening one’s chest or taking off a jacket. She was miming pulling away her armor and sharing herself with her partner, over and over again.

In referring her experience of the exercise with the whole group, Kera exclaimed “A lot of what was motivating my movements was ‘Oh, I want to talk to [my partner] so bad!’ A lot of what defined my character was my relationship to [my partner].” After that, she and her partner shared a look and a smile.

Kera’s openness and partner focus made what could have been just a late-night Thursday interview a warm and friendly conversation.

It’s Kera, right?

You’re totally right! Like “I care a lot about you.”

I love it! I have “Ross, the guy from friends.”

I feel like you always have to have a thing so people will remember your name.

Yeah, I won’t forget that!

I try.

So, how’d you find Lucid Body?

A friend of mine from college was directing me and had worked with Fay at the NYU Grad Program and recommended her work to me as somebody who practices yoga and is an actor. He was kind of like, “I think this would really fit into the two worlds that you live in and are trying to make one thing that you understand.” So, I read the book and then I started getting the newsletters and I applied for one of the scholarships, and in the Spring last year and I took my first workshop.

Having read the book, having heard about it from your friend, and having a yoga practice yourself, has your Lucid Body introduction been what you hoped for?

Absolutely. It was a lot of “ah ha!” moments. When you’re reading a book you’re thinking a lot about understanding things – a lot about yoga makes sense to me intellectually but then to do the chakra walkthrough for the first time, and really concentrate on what it means to explode a chakra and implode it and then really feeling what is happening in your body – being in the classroom just takes everything off the page and really puts it into your body in a way that’s memorable and different. I feel like if you’re going to take this class the reason is that you’re too in your head anyway and you need to get in your body. Reading the book I got it, but being in the classroom is another level. It’s absolutely taking me to the places I want to go and just making me feel like I have more range than I feel like I’ve had in a long time.

Okay, range as an actor and as a person?

Totally! Cause the first thing we do, of course, is a lot of self-reflection and self-examination, and then you walk out of the classroom more aware of your physical body. So then understanding how you’re responding to the environment around and the people around you. But then also, through the exercises in class, feeling extremes that I could go to if asked. And just really feeling then, “Oh, I COULD be this. I have this capability inside me, and it’s not scary. It’s somewhere that’s uncomfortable but doable.”

How has it felt to take that openness, that awareness of your physical body, out into New York City?

As somebody who has been practicing yoga for a while, I’ve found the things that work for me when I’m heading out of practice so that I can still enjoy that openness but also stay a little protected. Feeling open-hearted, observant, and open to interactions but making sure that energetically I’m protected. Because when you come out, you are open, and so if somebody next to you is really in a hurry you can just kind of feel that buzz building up from your gut all the way up and all of a sudden my shoulders are by my ears. Sometimes it’s as simple as putting a hat on or putting on a scarf, physically doing something so that I feel energetically protected. Is that too hippy-dippy? (laughs)

Speaking of that buzz, that energy, is that something you’ve worked with in regards to chakras or is that part of the technique different for you?

I think for me, one of the newest things I’ve realized about myself in the past few years is that I’m more anxious than the average human being is and I think some of that may be because I’m so attuned to what’s happening around me. I think just through having conversation with good friends and my partner I’ve realized, “Oh, you don’t have this thought? You don’t have this anxiety?” I think that anxiety is a product of being an open-hearted, attuned person in the world. Feeling what’s happening around me and being aware of what could happen – that potential.

I too feel like I’m someone who can get lost in my head in acting work, and you can read about acting all day but that can even make it worse when you’re onstage. In this class, do you feel lost in your head? Does that anxiety bubble up?

No, cause the warmup is really great. Now that we’re a couple weeks in, there’s something about that ritual of doing the warmup that drops you in where you are and really gets you feeling, literally feeling, where you’re at. And then I feel like once I’ve been through that, and because it’s such a safe space, I really am able to just stay there. And the audible exhaling is a really great way of saying, “Am I being honest? Where am I? What am I feeling? What’s going on?” I think the warmup is a great ritual to get me out of my head and into being a responsive body in space.

Awesome, thank you.

You’re welcome!