Embodiment: Movement-based Devising

The body has knowledge; the body contains memory; the body is a source of stories. This course will give you some tools to unlock that knowledge and use it in your work and life. The fundamental questions of the course are: How is your body a gateway to creativity, imagination, memory, and freedom of expression? How are imagination, voice, emotion and physicality connected? How can you be present in and through your physical capacity as an actor? How is language embodied? What might it mean to have a physical “practice” that opens your heart and creative imagination? This is a studio technique class. As such, you will spend a minimum of two hours, three times per week exploring, expanding and informing your physical capacity as an actor. The course will challenge you physically, imaginatively and emotionally to consider your body as a partner (rather than a follower, or a puppet) in the creative process of acting. As you become familiar with some of the physically-based practices, you will discover your limitations and go beyond them; you will find new creative freedom and health. Course objectives include: to begin or deepen a life-long process of self-discovery through the embodied (kinesthetic) experience and practice; become familiar with some of the key physical practices available to the actor; apply new kinesthetic knowledge to spoken text, narrative, relationship, character; experience the body as a reservoir of knowledge, stories and creative capacity; apply physical/kinesthetic/movement-based approach to collaborative creation/devising.