Movement for the actor - My lesson plan (Physical theatre)

Movement for the Actor – Lesson Plan:

Basic Human anatomy, why is it significant to the actor?

Hello, I am Lexia Tomlinson and welcome to my seminar: my focus will be on joints, physical theatre and the practitioners Moshe Feldenkrais and Lester Horton.

As I am doing joints I will only be focusing on the skeletal structure of the human body. Can anyone tell me how many bones there are in the human adult body?  (206) However when we were infants there were as up to 300-350 at birth, this then dwindled down to 270, can anyone tell me why there is now a reduction in the amount of bones as we get older?  (As we grow older our bones fuse together, the most obvious our Skull bones, sacrum and hip bone.)

The main bones of the human skeleton are:

• The Skull - Cranium, Mandible and Maxilla

• Shoulder girdle - clavicle and scapula

• Arm - humerus, radius and ulna

• Hand - Carpals, Metacarpals and Phalanges

• Chest - Sternum and Ribs

• Spine - Cervical area (top 7 vertibrae), Thoracic (next 12), Lumbar (bottom 5 vertebrae), Sacrum (5 fused or stuck together bones) and Coccyx (the tiny bit at the bottom of the spine).

• Pelvic girdle - Ilium, Pubis and Ischium.

• Leg - Femur, Tibia and Fibula

• Ankle - Talus and calcaneus (not shown above)

• Foot - Tarsals, Metatarsals and Phalanges.

Synovial (diarthrosis): Synovial joints are by far the most common classification of joint within the human body. They are highly moveable and all have a synovial capsule (collagenous structure) surrounding the entire joint, a synovial membrane (the inner layer of the capsule) which secretes synovial fluid (a lubricating liquid) and cartilage known as hyaline cartilage which pads the ends of the articulating bones. There are 6 types of synovial joints which are classified by the shape of the joint and the movement available.

oint Type	Movement at joint	Examples	Structure
Hinge	Flexion/Extension	Elbow/Knee	Hinge joint
Pivot	Rotation of one bone around another	Top of the neck (atlas and axis bones)	Pivot Joint
Ball and Socket	Flexion/Extension/Adduction/ Abduction/Internal & External Rotation	Shoulder/Hip	Ball and socket joint
Saddle	Flexion/Extension/Adduction/ Abduction/Circumduction	CMC joint of the thumb	Saddle joint
Condyloid	Flexion/Extension/Adduction/ Abduction/Circumduction	Wrist/MCP & MTP joints	Condyloid joint
Gliding	Gliding movements	Intercarpal joints	Gliding joint

Why do you think knowing about your basic human anatomy is relevant as an actor?

Open to question and answer.

My answer:

The reason knowing about your anatomy is important is because our body is our ‘tool’ and we need to know how it works, so that we can look after it and manipulate it to physicalise the characters that we are playing.

When I say manipulation I mean an awareness, to know where you start and the character begins. For example I was in a LAMDA Acting exam, I was fully aware of my torso and arms, I’d planned that out to fit with my character but I’d forgotten about my feet and did what is known as “dancing feet”. This resulted in a marking down. As an actor can you think of a think when you weren’t fully aware or planned out what you would be doing with a particular body part for your time on stage or film?

Understanding our anatomy is also vital for movement, can anyone tell me how many planes of motion there are? (Answer 3)

And what those planes are of motion are called? 

Sagittal Plane

The Sagittal plane passes through the body front to back, so dividing it into left and right. Movements in this plane are the up and down movements of flexion and extension

Frontal Plane

The frontal plane divides the body into front and back. Movements in this plane are sideways movements, called abduction and adduction

Transverse Plane

This plane divides the body into top and bottom. Movements in this plane are rotational in nature, such as internal and external rotation, pronation and supination

Has anyone ever come across the neutral passion when acting?

• Standing upright
• Legs together and knee straight
• Toes pointing straight forwards
• Arms by the side
• Palms facing straight down

The Feldenkrais Method:

The Feldenkrais Method was developed by Moshe Feldenkrais, Feldenkrais was a scientist and well respected Judo instructor, in his youth an injury threatened to leave him severely disabled in his later years, his doctors suggested surgery. However he refused it, instead he used his knowledge of “anatomy, physiology, psychology and engineering, as well as his mastery of martial arts, to healing his own knee.
During the process he realised the vital importance of working with the whole body and indeed the whole self in order to achieve lasting, radical change”

Activities:

1.Could you all go lie in separate spaces of the room please, lay how you feel comfortable not how you think you should.  (Wonder amongst the group observing how they lay)

2. Could you all lay flat on your stomach, stretched out, now turn your head to the right, then lift your right hand , see how your pelvic bone lifts with that movement, now lift your left leg so it rest on the other . Repeat movement another 4 times please. Now switch to your left. Try that movement without looking at the hand. How does it feel now?

3. Could you lay on your back and left your legs so the sole of your feet is flat on the ground, now very slowly and gently let your knees tilt a little bit to the right and a little bit to the left; don’t go so slow that your legs feel heavy and that you’re having to be strong to carry out the movement.

A variant on this movement is bring one leg over the other, could you all go with your right, tilt to the right then back to the centre, do that twice more then switch to your left leg and do the same movement.

Could you lay back flat on your back, slowly roll onto your stomach draw your arms up gently push up onto your knees so you’re in a “doggy” position bring your leg of choice through your arms slowly push up until standing into the neutral position. 

Lester Horton was a major artistic contribution to the modern American dance movement, Horton studied ballet and choreographed for stage and film. What makes Horton’s techniques special is that fact that he moved away from the clean lines of ballet  “ It was not fashioned on his body, nor was it made to fit the straitjacket of any philosophical or physical concepts; it was a technique developed to serve the art of dance through group participation.”

What he wanted to focus on was new ways of doing things e.g “New ways were developed to go up, to go down, to use one leg, to use both legs, and to see how long a balance could be held in what seemed an impossible position.” 

Speaking of impossible, we shall try some of his warm ups. 

Activities:

1.       Can you stand in neutral then do a body roll out to the floor, whilst on the floor extend arms forward and bend knee joints whilst trying to keep feet flat on the floor, once you are comfortable and know you won’t harm yourself do that quicker.

2.    The next position is for you to be in a parallel, back leg straight whilst front leg is pointed horizontally,  drop your torso and abdomen whilst keeping arms out straight, now drop down like so.

Bibliography

Author/s	Year	Title	Edition (if not 1st)	Location Where published	publisher
Smart, Ted.       (2001)              Human Body.          London (UK):         Dorling Kindersley limited. Peragola, Mara Della. (2003)   The Feldankrais Journal No. 16. (Online). (Accessed: 14th Nov 2012). http://feldenkraisinstitute.com/images/uploads/WrkingWithActors_artcl.pdf                                                                                      Available from here:

http://www.innerbody.com/anatomy/skeletal-male (14th Nov 2012)

http://www.teachpe.com/anatomy/skeleton.php

http://www.teachpe.com/anatomy/movements.php

http://www.feldenkrais.co.uk/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6NnVWeJ-nY&feature=share&list=ULy6NnVWeJ-nY

http://www.dancespotlight.com/lester_horton.html

http://youtu.be/dnquDBX2TYA

NLP: Seminar With Paul

 Lesson with Paul:

Tuesday 13^th November 2012

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) has been brought up quite frequently by Paul, in all honesty I have never heard of the term before, and upon primary research I could not see how it linked in with drama.  

LO 3.1 But as I read on and I saw that NLP was all about how to ‘actively use your mind and your emotions and your body to run your own life more successfully and to communicate with other people with 'extraordinary' effectiveness’. I realised these are all the qualities a good actor needs, they need to be in touch with who they are mentally and physically so their quirks don’t rub off on the characters they play.

 For me as an individual and actor getting more skilled in NLP is appealing because it will enable me to:

• v  Do whatever I already do reasonably well, even better (who doesn’t want that?)
• v  Acquire skills and attitudes to do what I cannot do right now, but would like to be able to do
• v  Think more clearly
• v  Communicate more effectively with others
• v  Manage my thoughts, moods and behaviours more effectively.

                                                                              (How I wish to be as an individual)

 During this morning’s session Paul lead the class through a light NPL activity in which you are directed through a dream sequence of your own creation; but you are asked to do things such as follow the people within the dream or build rooms and think about the exact colour objects are.

 The entire class was asked to lie in a supine position, close their eyes and try to relax as much as a possible, relaxation is important for an actor because a ‘A tense mind is one that will hold you back and keep you on the "safe" road’ (Prior Aphter); I believe this is very true especially when I recall moments when I had been tense on stage and those tense moments have caused me to forget about submerging myself into the character.

 Instead I concentrated on my own nerves and urgency to recall my lines not live in the moment like it was all happening new to my character.

 After achieving a relaxed state I closed my eyes and listened to the first prompt, “you are laying on a beach somewhere, starring up at the blue sky”. This may not sound like such a hard thing to visualise however the ‘external event’ for us was a cold winter morning in a cold room where the air vent couldn’t be turned off. I now realise this is a form of NLP where you must combat external events and distort/change or create an internal event.

 I was so absorbed within the dream that despite the cold weather I felt myself getting warmer, I think this is a great result because as an actor I can use this tool in future to immerse myself in the world of any character I’m playing and forget about external factors; it will be especially good for ‘Three Sisters’ because I have to imagine myself in there world, amongst their furniture and ornaments in a totally different time period.

During the activity we were lead through to other destinations within the world be had mentally created, and we were asked to follow a character. The dream was very vivid it felt like a panoramic HD film and I remember following a little girl in a red dress with long black hair to her home, we were asked to look into their eyes; I remember feeling a state of utter calmness coming from the little girl, this juxtaposed with how I thought she would feel, as a little girl being all alone. 

This taught me a valuable lesson as an actor, I may assume something about a character but eventually they may morph and grow from assumption.

Bibliography

Aphter Prior, Mar 15 2012 , Online article : http://voices.yahoo.com/film-acting-importance-mental-relaxation-to-11102850.html?cat=40  (Accessed 13/11/2012)

http://www.nlp-now.co.uk/nlp-what.htm

http://mysuccessfullife.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/tagcloud-300x191.jpg Image URL