Workshop : The Kinetic Mind of the Actor and the Nature of Dramatic Action

The study of the mind through the body and the body through the mind.

Polina Klimovitskaya's Kinetic Mind Work grew up out of the most innovative traditions of Russian theater and the encounter with the American avant garde. Through decades of intensive work, it adapted to meet the demands and challenges of 21st-century actors. Kinetic Mind, a way to free intuitive thinking and enhance the performer's visceral presence, challenges the ways we think when performing and helps actors circumvent the daily, rational mind, which restrains creativity. Ultimately the technique guides the artist toward her/his unique, creative core.

In this particular workshop Kinetic Mind will be applied to reconsider the primal nature of the action and its function in the actor's process. When an actor can recognize and experience every impulse and movement on the stage as an action, when s/he can absorb action on a visceral level as an essence of the character, only then can the actor capture and lead the audience through the performance.

Trough a progression of exercises, improvisations and scene work we will investigate:

1. movement as an action
2. internal/external actions
3. an action as a revelation of the character's essence
4. text analysis
5. speech as a kinetic and mental action