© Constantin Gindele
1st YEAR
Begin your exploration of the Self and the Other
The starting point of the 1st Year is a robust investigation into what it means to be a human being, and more particularly, what it means to be oneself. We are all wonderfully unique and therefore will all bring our own perspectives and experiences to the creative and artistic explorations we will undertake as performers.
Self awareness and mindful consciousness of who we are will inform the way we each approach the roles we’ll tackle as actors, but this can only be from the foundation of investigating and embracing who we are as individuals as well as who we are collectively.
You will be challenged to question habitual thinking and encouraged to grow into the most courageous, inventive and liberated version of yourself under the careful and experienced guidance of the teaching staff, and without the pressure of public performances. On a regular basis, you will have the opportunity to discuss your personal and artistic development with the teachers.
During the year, a number of exam-equivalent private showings of your work is arranged for the rest of the school, culminating in a composite theatrical performance for selected audience.
COURSES 1st YEAR
Basic Contemporary Method Acting
This course is an Introduction to basic Contemporary Method Acting technique and methodology.
In a variety of exercises, we work on the performers’ being: the mindbody factors of Sensing, Thinking, Intuiting and Feeling, with an increasing awareness of your own sensitive selve, and on the focusing of this being towards active doing.
Additionally, the course aims to build awareness of your unconscious behavior: Intuitive impulse and flow, sensory perception, emotional memory, imagination, creativity and improvisation with an increasing awareness and understanding of the Performative Self in artistic expression.
Singing
In the Singing classes we aim for authentic singing based on flow of inner life and grounded stance, rather than for beautified singing. You will work with compositions and analysis of lyrics as tools to access this authentic expression.
In the 1st Year you will gain a practical understanding of the basic elements of training the singing voice: release, grounding, alignment, breath, flow of inner life, resonance and articulation.
Voice Training
The Voice Training is designed to open and strengthen your voice, making you aware of healthy vocal habits and giving you the skills to enhance your vocal expression and increase presence when speaking.
Through various exercises and explorations throughout the year you will get a practical understanding of the basic elements of voice training: release/grounding work, alignment, breath, resonance and articulation.
The aim is for you to begin to understand how you can apply and play with your vocal skills, both in your daily live and as a performer.
Dance
The Dance classes include Classical Ballet, Contemporary Technique and Improvisation.
You will gather a strong technical base and body awareness, and experience the body-mind connection through dance.
The class has a high focus on the individual, working on weaknesses and strengths, and unlocking your unique movement potential, whatever level you are at.
Movement
The Movement classes are closely linked to the Movement Psychology classes (Laban/Malmgren technique). Mainly, you will train your core strength, stamina, honing the senses, and quality of movement, and undergo a systematic training of your unique expressivity within the different spatial dimensions. A training of physical scales, equivalent of the bar work of the ballet dancer, or the piano scales of the pianist.
In the 1st year, the main focus is to get the technique in under your skin, both practically and theoretically. You will work physically on the floor with the Movement Psychology System, particularly the 8 Working Actions, incorporating different choreographed movements to explore and understand the System.
Movement Psychology
In this course you will develop a fundamental body, spatial, mental and expressive awareness as a performer in relation to the principles of Movement Psychology.
The Movement Psychology System is a mind-body approach to actor training developed by Rudolf Laban and Yat Malmgren based on the movement methodology of Laban, Stanislavskij’s acting techniques, and C.G. Jung’s research on archetypes and the collective unconscious.
The approach is mostly practical, physical, and investigational in the studio as lab-work. You will work solo, in pairs and with the entire group.
Text, Character & Object (Part 1)
In this course, you will practice the fundamental components of character building and rehearsing a dramatic scene: Analysing the character, the script, and the individual scenes, and transforming that insight into organic character and stage choices.
You will work with different scenes from one play, and practice determining and personally identifying with the characters’ super-objectives, objectives in the play and the scene, obstacles, character problems etc., using as a starting point your own life experience imaginatively.
Scenic Composition Project
The aim of the course is for students to practice taking artistic and creative responsibility, both towards their characters as well as the dramatic structure of the collective piece, rather than only passively fulfilling a given director’s vision and directions.
Scenic composition places the responsibility for both the creative process and the theatrical expression on the ensemble as a whole, empowering the students to take creative ownership over the artistic result. Guided in this approach by a tutor-director, the performers themselves generate the original material out of which the scenes are molded. The dramatic material derives mainly from theatrical scenarios composed by the students, developing a chosen narrative, setting and aesthetic environment.
The goal of this co-creative process is to stage and perform an integrated, devised theatre piece of medium length in which the elements of body, text, theatrical staging and scenography are synthesized into an artistic whole, with characteristic choices made collectively regarding style, form and genre.
Applied Theatre History
In Applied Theatre History you will research each major theatre historical period from Greek Tragedy to Modernism, and map out the progression of and connection between different periods and movements.
1st Year students, in groups of two or three, hold presentations on specific historical periods and its most prominent writers, philosophers, artists and theatre practitioners.
Screen Acting Technique
Screen Acting Technique aims to prepare you for work in front of and with the camera.
You will learn how to match the camera’s neutral registration with an open presence, and to be in an authentic quality of being, so the camera does not become an obstacle but a co-player.
You will train your awareness of what you’re unaware of in your daily life in terms of being and presence, and how to bring it forth in a free and organic expressivity, while at the same time learning to look through the performance from an inner space of alertness.
Body Awareness
The course comprises yoga, movement improvisation and choreographic and compositional tasks designed to give you a greater awareness of your own body’s potential, range of movement and expressiveness.