23.2.2009.

Acting workshops ACTING TECHNIQUE OF MICHAEL CHEKHOV

ACTING TECHNIQUE OF MICHAEL CHEKHOV
NGO CREATIVE RESEARCH Acting workshops
Bitef Theatre
March 5 to 10,10:00 - 15:00
Workshop leader: Scott Fielding
The workshop is intended for actors, directors and students of academies of dramatic arts.

We are currently receiving applications:
For additional information, please contact:
Sonja Živanović 063/ 38 44 65
Draginja Mileusnić 063/ 657 817
Number of participants is limited.

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Chekhov / Михаил Александрович Чехов (29.08.1891, St. Petersburg – 30. 09. 1955, Beverly Hills, California)

Michael Chekhov was an actor who embodied these primary qualities more fully than anyone else from his (or any other) generation. He was a nephew of playwright Anton Chekhov and \"the most brilliant student\" of Stanislavsky. Hew was expected to become the best actor that Russia ever had. Michael Chekhov leaves Russia under political pressure and establishes the Chekhov Theatre Studio in England, and afterwards leaves for New York where he continues to work as an acting coach. He trained many famous actors, among others Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Yul Brynner, Gary Cooper and many others. For the role of Dr. Brulov in Hitchcock’s film Spellbound he was nominated for the Academy Award. He died in Hollywood, having dedicated his entire life to creating a completely new and radical approach to acting. Chekhov had a great talent for characterization and was a keen observer of the creative process. He is considered to be one of the greatest and most innovative Russian actors and directors. He intrigued his audience with interpretations that were unusually alive and imaginative. His life’s journey enabled him to work intensively with the leading actors and directors in Germany, Lithuania, France, England and the US. Through this collaboration he developed a new approach to acting technique and inspired actors, teachers, directors and playwrights to create a theatre which, above all, radiates life. He opened the door for spirited acting. According to him, the basic assumption of successful acting and the basic goal of actor’s training is the harmonious development of actor’s skills, which includes an entire human being, body and voice, feelings, senses, thoughts and imagination. Chekhov developed a unique method which was based on psycho – physical exercises. He emphasized both the need for external and internal transformation. His method was focused on developing concentration that enables the opening of imagination with access to senses and emotions. It develops a soft and malleable body which allows for unrestrained expressing of emotions. Chekhov insists on objectivity. When teaching acting, it is also necessary to develop an ability of imaginative thinking. Actors are learning to see characters as alive and independent before they introduce their image into their acting. In that they are using atmospheres/qualities/sensations as dependent and healthy means of awakening actor’s inner life and evoking feelings to the surface. Chekhov’s method in its very essence, which is holistic and objective, inspires actors to fully and truthfully express their sensations and emotions in their work.

Workshop

In this workshop, based on Michael Chekhov’s method, we will learn and practice an organic series of creative exercises for actors, and observe the main qualities of excellent acting, as well as certain other qualities which are their essential companions.

In so doing, we may grasp how (with consistent and systematic practice) Chekhov’s simple artistic method can stimulate the individual’s highest potential for acting; in other words: how the method can help us become better actors, or, in case of directors, understand the organic process that goes on in the actor and learn about the road on which a director is guiding actors in the creative process of making theatre performance.

Mastering the dynamic entwining of imagination and body stimulates healthy development of human abilities and liberates the deepest talent of actor-artist.

Workshop leader

Scott Fielding is an itinerant director and teacher. He is the producing artistic director of Alchymia Theatre and the director of The Michael Chekhov Actors Studio Chicago in the US. He is recognized as a Master Teacher by the International Michael Chekhov Association (MICHA), for which he is a faculty member for the Teacher Training Program and International Workshop and Festival.

His recent work as stage director in Eastern Europe includes: Aria Da Capo (Ormož, Slovenia), Mud (Zagreb Theatre for Youth), 4.48 Psychosis (Academy of Dramatic Art Zagreb), King Lear, in collaboration with Slovenian director Tomi Janežić (Atelje 212, Belgrade) and The Blind (Macedonian National Theatre). Most recent U.S. productions include: If You Had Three Husbands, A Masque of Reason, Flood, Rosmersholm, and The White Princess by Gertrude Stein (Alchymia Theatre, Stanislavsky Theatre Studio) as well as works by Garcia Lorca, Robert Frost and Günter Grass (Alchymia Theatre), together with many others.

In Croatia, he was a guest professor at the Academies of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and Osijek in 2005-2006. He has taught Master classes and workshops in Europe (England, Switzerland, Germany), and in recent years throughout the former Yugoslav region, including Sarajevo, Mostar, Ljubljana, Zagreb and Belgrade (39th BITEF – Belgrade International Theatre Festival, 2005), as well as in Brazil. In the United States he has taught for the faculties of California State University Long Beach, Northeastern Illinois University, and the Speech and Drama Program of Sunbridge College.

Scott Fielding is a member of The New York Actors\' Ensemble. As an actor, he has performed in New York theaters Off- and Off-Off-Broadway, such as Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Samuel Beckett, the Harold Clurman, Manhattan Theater Club, American Theater for Actors, and The Cubiculo, aswell as in theatres in Chicago and California Repertory Company, Los Angeles.

ARHIVA VESTI

Godina 2008.