Movement 1: The Instrument of Expression
An actor’s entire body is the instrument of expression, and one must train it, care for it, and ultimately master it so that it can fulfill the demands of your creative imagination. Without movement training, an actor will experience physical discomfort, tension, and self-consciousness on stage, on set, and in auditions. Actors with a well-tuned physical instrument are more open, available, and capable of true experiential freedom.
Emotional Freedom
The movement training in Level 1 focuses on releasing the restriction of the actor’s body and mind and freeing the actor’s emotional life and authentic impulse in a safe environment of play and exploration. With the emotional demands placed upon actors, it is imperative that their bodies be released, responsive, and free. Though helpful at any stage of training, the correlation between what happens in Level 1 of movement and the work of the first-year acting student is significant. Using the fundamentals of the Williamson Technique, this class functions as a physical guide to help you identify your unique habits of tension and begin to let go of extraneous physical behavior. In doing so, the actor will become less physically cluttered and more capable of creating expansive, unapologetic behavior with a sense of ease.
Authentic Expression
Special care is given to creating a safe and nurturing environment where actors can begin to permit themselves to move away from pedestrian, socialized behavior and embody a more authentic and unbridled state of expression. Acting is a collaborative art dealing with many human and physical contact levels. Level 1 students are given the tools and environment to learn how to be physically released during simple, truthful exchanges with their ensemble. Students will learn the Williamson Technique and explore the seven psychophysical energy centers of the actor’s channel. They will also gain basic alignment, release vocabulary and tools immediately applicable to their acting work and training. Students will begin to understand themselves and their bodies vividly and authentically.
Released and Open
Movement classes for actors are most valuable when there is a solid, cohesive progression that leads the actor to a more developed and pliable instrument. You cannot work on your body in an acting class. That work needs to happen elsewhere. When the actors physical body finally begins to open, the processing of experience becomes more fluid, and the quality of the actors emotional life becomes more aesthetically pleasing to watch. An actor who is released and open will allow the audience to live vicariously through them. Level 1 is the first stage of a very profound and rewarding experience that will lay the foundation for creating vivid, fully realized human behavior.
Movement 1 is a 12-week course with 24 classes.
Movement 1 is a prerequisite for Movement 2.
SARA FAY GEORGE
Sara Fay George is the founder of The Holistic Method, a physical acting technique designed bring participants into confident connection with themselves and elicit fully embodied storytelling. She worked as the Resident Movement Coach with The Actors Space, Berlin, The Fritz-Kirchoff Schule and has been training actors across America and Europe since 2010.
STUDENT TESTIMONIALS
“Movement 1 is insanely good. An incredible class that takes you on such an amazing emotional and spiritual journey. We travel through every shakra in the body. At the end of the class you will feel like a completely different person.”
Isaiah Hamilton
“Movement 1 literally changed my life, it taught me what it means to work on my “actors body.¨ Julia Crockett and Briana Packen instilled an awareness in me and a way of working that keeps me open and available. This class is irreplaceable.”
Rolando Chusan
“Before taking this class, I was using my body as a shield to protect me. the tension in my body wasn’t allowing me to take uncomfortable situations “in”. I learned how to to express whatever impulses I was feeling through body, language and sound.”
