Alexander Technique for the Actor I

The Alexander Technique offers a set of skills and insights about how we think, move and breathe by connecting us through our senses to our thoughts, feelings, and actions. As actors and performing artists, we can use this method to invite more ease into our preparation instead of stiffness or tension. We can experience confidence in our posture, our gestures, and our voices; our overall way of being. Alexander Technique is useful for unloading the habits we unknowingly carry into our acting. An attitude of curiosity and experimentation opens us up, making the resiliency of body and mind more accessible -- this is the essential core of Alexander’s principles.

Through guided experience, the Alexander Technique brings you into a collaborative, playful relationship with your natural design for movement -- freeing up your creativity and releasing tension. Body language is an essential aspect of how we communicate. Postural tone, for example, tells us so much about ourselves as it reveals our inner dialogue to others. Use of the Alexander Technique can heighten awareness of our responses to thoughts, feelings, and the meaning of the words we use.

As you learn more in this class about your design for embodied thought, you will gain key skills for bringing about simple and natural breath and movement. The Alexander Technique offers ways to free yourself from habitual patterns without forcefully manipulating or positioning your body. As you develop a dependable sense of center, you will strengthen your movement coordination and postural system. This work is unhurried, so it can help you feel more present in your own skin, more in sync with your body and mind -- and story.

Classwork will address:

• Developing sensory awareness and freeing attention
• Warm-ups and practices for mindful movement
• Skills for tension prevention and release
• Coordinating movement and breathing with ease
• Body-mapping and practical breathing anatomy
• Integration of Alexander Technique with your acting process through simple activities, improvisations and text.