Friday, September 30, 2011

Movement Techniques for the Exceptional Actor

By Maggie Flanigan


Movement acting classes are essential for any serious actor and physical technique is important. Serious actors looking to improve their physical technique find movement acting classes very important to the process. Movement classes are important to serious actors. These classes help actors improve their physical performance technique. Actors are physical beings, whose movement technique, and sense of physical space need to be expanded, softened and heightened if they are to perform well.

A Meisner actor's main objective is to imagine circumstances and then "live" them in a truthful way, and a movement class can help support this goal. If an actor is tense thinking about their next line or their performance, training from a movement class can help them loosen and expand their physical technique. Those types of reactions affect the physical being, which in turn affects their emotional sensations and reactions. If the physical aspects of an actor's "self" are closing them off too much to what's going on around them, their emotional reactions will be compromised.

It is rare to find a person who is totally in tune with their environment physically, who is open to everything around them, and can truly use their physical self to communicate authentically and well. A movement class can help the Meisner actor become fully physically aware. We all develop physical habits as we relate to others, physical habits often borne out of our emotional state. Tense bodies result from anxiety, and our movement is affected. This kind of movement habit affects all interactions, even those that involve acting. Limiting for the Meisner trained actor, this constricted physicality can lower the emotional quality of the performance. Movement habits are brought into a movement class so the actor can become aware of and break them.

It is important not to define the phrase movement training in too narrow a sense. Movement cannot be preconceived. Initially, movement technique should be about developing an awareness of how one moves physically as they relate to other people and the space around them.

Another misconception is that physical movement for an actor relates only to the body. In fact, movement relates to the body, to facial expression, body language and perhaps most importantly an awareness of sound. The sound of a space, another voice or the whisper of another actor's presence can all contribute to a great performance if you understand all aspects of movement and acting. Working with the voice is also part of movement training, how it fills up a space, how other actor's hear it, also effects the quality of a play as it is performed.

A constricted physical condition affects the voice. An expanded voice quality may not be the best thing for a performance and physical constriction can help produce the correct voice. Any actor that strives to be exceptional can benefit from learning all aspects of movement and how it relates to emotional preparedness in Meisner. Movement training for actors increases their emotional range and their ability to become more fully human and expressive. The greatest performances take extremely hard work, especially in the area of movement and its relation to emotional preparation, the best actor's secret weapon.




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