Embodied acting: experiencing the Whole in order to play your part

The greatest actors are truly transformational - shape-shifters who seem to disappear beneath the skin of a character, allowing us to see, hear and feel into experiences and worlds beyond those of the actor. Acting teacher Jane Drake Brody describes it as “an actor mov[ing] from his or her own limited and boundaried life into an imagined limited and boundaried life.” This simple statement gets to the heart of my work - helping the actor to identify their personal patterns, to walk these emotional edges, and ultimately to expand beyond this knowing-place to allow new possibilities and choices. This session uses the lens of performance to look at the body as a playable/trainable ‘instrument’ of storytelling but, of course, acting work is human work and we are all the storytellers of our own lives. The introductory exercises in this session will be of value to performers and non-performers alike.