The Foundations of Michael Chekhov’s Approach to Acting and Performance

A sequence of one-day workshops

September 2023 - June 2024

‍with Sarah Kane‍

These one-day workshops provide an overview over the core elements of Michael Chekhov’s acting technique that he continued to develop throughout his life. They range from the very beginnings of any serious artistic research and exploration to the finer points of developing a stage life and creating character, including the character’s psychological gesture.

The workshops aim to introduce participants to or deepen their understanding of the strongly creative and highly artistic techniques developed by the Russian actor in the middle of the twentieth century. They also aim to inspire and empower actors for their future work.‍

Part 3: CREATING CHARACTER
May - June 2024

Each of these three workshops will be an entirety in itself and can be taken individually.

‍What is Chekhov’s Imaginary Body?
Sunday 19 May, 10am - 5pm

This will a day of engaging with the imagination to transform our own physical bodies and clothing to create character/characters: every transformation of our own body, however small, can become the source of a new character, with his or her own habits, behaviour, thinking, likes and dislikes, etc. As usual, please bring clothing and footwear suitable for movement, as well as a short text that a character might speak. It will be helpful to know this text by heart.

‍The Imaginary Centre
Saturday 22 June, 10am - 5pm

As a further tool in Chekhov’s approach to developing character, and a follow-on from the Ideal Centre, discovering the Imaginary Centre with the help again of the actor’s imagination, can be enormously enriching and transformative. It will involve exploring colour, forms and textures, its home in the body, as well as real and imaginary objects, all inspired by the character and inviting the actor to transform everything relating to his or her outer appearance. As usual, please bring clothing and footwear suitable for movement, as well as a short text that a character might speak. it will be helpful to know this text by heart.

The Character’s Psychological Gesture
Saturday 29 June, 10am - 5pm

What is often considered to be the crown of Chekhov’s approach to acting, the psychological gesture is a further development of what he calls the archetypal gestures: whatever gesture expresses the character’s overall intention becomes entirely individual to the character being performed when complemented by specific qualities. The workshop will explore qualities as well as search for the gesture that expresses the character’s intention in the text.As usual, please bring clothing and footwear suitable for movement, as well as a short text that a character might speak. It will be helpful to know this text by heart in order to find the character’s psychological gesture.

A new sequence of Chekhov workshops will be starting in the autumn of 2024.

Workshop Fee: £55 per individual day; £150.00 for three workshops.

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