Tuesday, 4 October 2011

Physical and Movement Aspects of Acting

By Maggie Flanigan


Movement acting classes are essential for any serious actor and physical technique is important. Any serious actor looking to add an improved physical technique to their craft has this kind of training. Movement classes are important to serious actors. These classes help actors improve their physical performance technique. Physicality is an important part of the actor's craft and movement technique helps them become aware of their own openness and the expansiveness of their movement while acting.

The Meisner technique, which is about creating imagined circumstances that are truthful, benefits greatly from a movement class that enhances an actor's physical awareness. 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. Actors are emotional and physical beings and they must remain open to all that is going on around them, or they will lose their emotional authenticity.

It can be unusual to find an actor who is keyed into their physical surroundings to such a degree that they remain open to all that is going on in their environment. Meisner actors are intent on reaching a state of full physical openness to their physical surroundings a technique of the movement class. We all react physically as we react to our most common emotional states, which in turn, becomes a habit. If we are tense, anxious, so is our body and our movement. If that is a habit we carry with us, we will carry into most our interactions. This can be highly constricting for a Meisner trained actor as they try to develop their craft. 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 is a very complex aspect of acting. Movement technique is about becoming more aware of the physical relationship to people around you and the surrounding space.

Physical movement of the body is not the only aspect of movement. In fact, movement relates to the body, to facial expression, body language and perhaps most importantly an awareness of sound. The voice, the sounds in a space, the sounds of another actor as they move around a space, their voice as they speak to you, are all extremely important to the acting process. Movement training should include work with the voice as it is used in the space, the voice as it relates to other actors and hearing fully and completely the sounds and the voices of the actors you work with as a play or performance progresses.

If an actor's physical self is constricted the voice will be also. It could be that if the physical state is too open when a constricted voice is needed, movement awareness can help. Actor's that understand the finer points of movement and its relation to the emotional quality of a performance will become an exceptional actor. Actors trained to use their physical selves with movement training can enhance their emotional performances, making them more human and authentic. Only by working very hard to develop an awareness of movement and using to great effect, will the actor be fully present and authentic in their performances.




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