Movement Training and Physical Technique for Actors

By Maggie Flanigan


The benefits of a movement class for a Meisner trained actor cannot be emphasized enough. 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.

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. Often, actor's tense up while performing, thinking too hard about their lines and a movement class helps them soften and open up more to the performance. 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 the rare actor that can finely tune themselves into the environment so deeply that they are physically totally present as they act and can react physically in an authentic way. Meisner actors are intent on reaching a state of full physical openness to their physical surroundings a technique of the movement class. Everyone has ingrained physical reactions that become habits, based on our default emotional states. Tense bodies result from anxiety, and our movement is affected. A movement habit, such as this, impacts the emotional depth of our interactions. It is prohibitive as the Meisner actor tries to practice the craft of acting. 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. Movement also relates to the face and its expressions, the messages sent by the body and sound awareness and control. An actor moving around a space, the voices of other actor's, your sound as you inhabit a space can also contribute to a great performance. Listening fully, being completely aware of the voice, relating to the voices of the other actors is also part of movement training.

If an actor's physical self is constricted the voice will be also. An expanded voice quality may not be the best thing for a performance and physical constriction can help produce the correct voice. Actor's that understand the finer points of movement and its relation to the emotional quality of a performance will become an exceptional actor. Movement training for actors increases their emotional range and their ability to become more fully human and expressive. Developing an awareness of movement and its affect on the authenticity of a performance, makes for a more human actor and a great one.




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