Awareness in Movement 1

Display Schedule

Subject guarantor

Michaela RAISOVÁ

Name of lecturer(s)

Helena ARENBERGEROVÁ, Jan BÁRTA, Jana NOVORYTOVÁ, Michaela RAISOVÁ

Learning outcomes of the course unit

1. Being aware of one’s body and its sentience. Feeling the inner space of the body and its motion and impact on the space.
2. Cultivating awareness of the body and movements „here and now“ on the stage – specific tasks, short improvisations and rehearsed etudes.
3. Sensing differences: release, hypotonicity, activation and overstrain. Experimenting with a rythm and motional compositions – improvisation, short etudes.
4. Concrete themes of an improvisation. Students create short etudes from following themes: embodying an animal, passing through different spaces.

Mode of study

• Regular contact teaching with the group.
• Individual and group work, improvisation and work with short repeatable structure.

Discussion and feedback in the class.

Feedback on individual movement assignments: How I see myself/ How I appear to the audience.

Prerequisites and co-requisites

1. Coordinated movement disposition, ability to feel the rhythm, self-reflection.
2. Movement imagination.
3. Musicality.

Course contents

Cultivating awareness in movement is necessary for being aware of one's body and motion and its following work in the process of individual creation and ability of stage presence.

1. Inner calm – perception of time and space.
2. Breathing in connection to movement.
3. Release, hypotonicity, activation and overstrain.
4. Movement dynamics, cultivating scale and perception of structure.
5. Cultivation of plasticity of movement and the use of imagination.
6. Rhythm.

Recommended or required reading

• Barba, E., Savarese, N. and col: A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology. London, NY: Routledge, 1999.
• Boorman, Joyce. Creative Dance in Grades Four to Six. Ontario: The Hunter Rose Company Limited, 1971.
• Boorman, Joyce. Creative Dance in the First Three Grades. Ontario: The Hunter Rose Company Limited, 1969.
• Brook, Peter. Empty Space: A Book About the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate. Scribner, 1995.
• Brook, Peter. The Empty Space. New York: Penguin Books, 2008.
• Brook, Peter. There Are No Secrets: Thoughts on Acting and Theatre. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
• Buckwalter, Melinda. Composing While Dancing, an improviserś companion. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2010.
• Burt, Ramsay. Judson Dance Theatre, Performative Traces. New York: Routledge, 2006.
• Calais-Germain, Blandine. Anatomy of Movement. Seattle: Eastland Press, 2013.
• Chekhov, Michail. The path of the Actor. London: Routledge, 2005.
• Chekhov, Michael. To the Actor: On the Technique of Acting. London: Martino Fine Book, 2014.
• Cohen, Bonnie Bainbridge. Sensing, Feeling, Action. USA: Contact Editions, 1993.
• Cooper, Ann, ed. Taken by surprise, A dance improvisation reader. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2003. Donnellan, Declan. The Actor and the Target. London: Nick Hern Books, 2005.
• Feldenkrais, Moshe. Awareness Through Movement. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1990.
• Forsythe, William. Practice of Choreography, It Starts From Any Point. New York: Routledge, 2011.
• Franclin, Eric. Dance Imagery for Technique and Performence, USA: Human Kinetics, 1996.
• Hartley, Linda. Wisdom of the Body Moving, An Introduction to Body-Mind Centering. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1995.
• Hodge, Alison, ed. Twentieth Century Actor Training. New York, London: Routledge, 2002.
• Innes, Christopher. Avant-garde Theatre. NY, London: Routledge, 1993.
• Mitter, Shomit. Systems of Rehearsal. Stanislavsky, Brecht, Grotowski and Brook. London, NY: Routledge, 1992.
• Newlove, Jean. Laban for Actors and Dancers. London: Routledge, 1993.
• Lecoq, Jacques. Theatre of Movement and Gesture. London: Routledge, 2006.
• Lecoq, Jacques. The Moving Body – Teaching Creative Theatre. New York: Routledge, 2002.
• Long, Raymond. The Key Muscles of Yoga. Banfha Yoga Publications LLC, 2006.
• Long, Raymond. The Key Poses of Yoga. Banfha Yoga Publications LLC, 2008.
• Paxton, Steve. Gravity. Belgium: Graphius, 2018.
• Reeve, Justine. Dance Improvisations. USA: Human Kinetics, 2011.
• Reeves, Geoffrey. Peter Brook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Roose-Evans, James. Experimental Theatre from Stanislavsky to Peter Brook. London: Routledge, 2001.
• Stanislavsky, K.S. An Actor Prepares. New York: Routledge, 1989.
• Steinman, Louise. The Knowing Body. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1986.
• Tufnell, Miranda, Crickmay, Chris. Body, space, image: notes towards improvisation and performance. Hampshire: Dance books, 2003.
• The Great European Stage Directors: Brook, Grotowski, Barba. London, NY: Methuen Drama, 2019.
• Zarrilli, P. Psychophysical Acting, an intercultural approach after Stanislavski, London: Routledge, 2009.

Assessment methods and criteria

Credit is awarded based on:

1. min. 70% attendance.
2. Interest and personal growth.
3. One or more authorial etuds or improvisation- solo or in a group.
4. Written reflection.
5. Taking part in „klauzury“ – the week exam at the end of the semester.

Schedule for winter semester 2020/2021:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

Schedule for summer semester 2020/2021:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

The subject is a part of the following study plans

• Authorial Acting in English (B.A.) (required subject)
• Authorial Acting in English (B.A.) (required subject)