Description
Time & Location
14. – 15.6.2021
Monday & Tuesday: 16:00 – 21:00
Helsinki, Finland
“I don’t believe in talent. I believe in the actor’s curiosity and in their constant application of effort to satisfy it” – Fay Beck
ABOUT THE EVENT
BEAT is a fully developed, dynamic and integrated approach to training actors that feels more like a spiritual awakening rather than a method of acting. BEAT actors are able to ‘enter’ character instinctively. This is the goal of the technique. During this two day workshop, participants will learn to feel, think, move, sound and feel like the character they seek to embody.
TO WHOM IT IS FOR
For anyone who is curious to learn more about the craft of acting and the Meisner Technique, or for those who are already familiar with the Meisner Technique and are eager to discover a new way of utilizing the methods to benefit their character work. Beginners welcome.
WHAT YOU GET
Through this workshop you will:
- An affective Neuroscientific re-interpretation of the Meisner Technique
- An reformulation of the actor as a resistance free vehicle through which emotion flows
- Understanding of character as a lived, embodied experience
- An understanding of the Repetition exercise as a tool for self-awareness, mindfulness and as a method to break down resistances, blockages and inefficiencies
- Disengaging energy and emotion from ‘things’ in your own world and applying them to ‘things’ in the character’s world
- A dynamic approach empowering actors to embody character psychologically
- A utilisation of current research and theories on affective neuroscience and psychoanalysis to reach character more effectively
INFO
- Price: 265€
- Location: Actors Academy Finland, Pursimiehenkatu 26H, Helsinki
- Time: 14.6. – 15.6.2021 / Monday & Tuesday 16:00 – 21:00
- Place is limited and will be filled on a ‘first-come-first-serve’ basis.
- The booking for all events and workshops is binding. You can cancel 30 days prior to the event and receive a 50% return of your payment or you can pass on your spot to another person without an extra fee.
- Teaching language is English (Please keep in mind that you do not need to have perfect English skills, a basic understanding is enough and you do not need to worry about accent and pronunciation).
- All rights to changes reserved.
- You can find the event on Facebook here.
ABOUT FAY BECK
Fay Beck is the artistic director and founder of the Actors Door Studio, a London based acting studio specialising in deep characterisation and realism in acting. In addition to training actors at her studio, Fay coaches actors one on one and in small groups. As an acting coach she works internationally with trained professionals, performers, working actors and with actors in training.
While the Foundations of her approach lie in the Meisner Technique, Fay has developed a new, focused and efficient acting technique, Beck Emotional Access Technique™ (or BEAT for short), aimed at developing the actor as ‘an artist of emotions’. Through BEAT, Fay trains actors to be able to give nuanced, highly specified, and finely tuned character driven performances. For the screen, Fay’s experience as a writer and film director, has enabled her to create a straight forward but powerful approach to screen acting, using an approach directly derived from BEAT.
ABOUT BEAT
While BEAT is based on the pragmatic approach developed by Sanford Meisner, Fay has pioneered a method of acting distinct from that of Meisner’s. BEAT is informed by her studies and research into Neuroscience, Psychology, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis. Certain exercises that one may be familiar with from Meisner’s method, are extended and used differently in BEAT, and for different aims. In a nut-shell, the aim of BEAT is not to train actors so that they regress to an instinctively self, wherefrom they may presumably be able to act truthfully/instinctively. In BEAT the aim is twofold. Firstly to train actors to disengage their instincts and emotions from themselves and the objects that are meaningful to them. Secondly, to train actors to warp, amend, twist and change emotions in a way that is in line with a particular character.
ABOUT MEISNER TECHNIQUE
The Meisner technique is an approach to acting which was developed by the American theatre practitioner Sanford Meisner. The focus of the Meisner approach is for the actor to “get out of their head”, such that the actor is behaving instinctively to the surrounding environment. To this end, some exercises for the Meisner technique are rooted in repetition so that the words are deemed insignificant compared to the underlying emotion. In the Meisner technique, there is a greater focus on the other actor as opposed to one’s internal thoughts or feelings associated with the character.
Meisner Training is an interdependent series of training exercises that build on one another. The more complex work supports a command of dramatic text. Students work on a series of progressively complex exercises to develop an ability to first improvise, then to access an emotional life, and finally to bring the spontaneity of improvisation and the richness of personal response to textual work. The techniques developed the behavioral strand of Stanislavski’s. The technique is used to develop improvisation skills as well as “interpreting a script, and creating the specific physical characteristics of each character the actor played”.
Sanford Meisner said that his approach to training “is based on bringing the actor back to his emotional impulses and to acting that is firmly rooted in the instinctive. It is based on the fact that all good acting comes from the heart, as it were, and that there’s no mentality to it.”
Learn to live in the moment as an actor, and let go of any idea of result. Learn what it means to really “do” and to respond truthfully to a given moment based on what you get from your partner. Through improvisation, emotional truth and personal response learn to resonate authenticity within a given circumstance. Only in this way will you begin to understand the definition of real acting, which is “to live truthfully under the imaginary circumstances”.
“If you want to reach every person in the audience, it’s not about being bigger, it’s about going deeper.”
– Sanford Meisner
TESTIMONIALS
“With guidance from the brilliant teacher, Fay Beck, I have been able to express myself freely, wholeheartedly and without fear of judgement. Fay is a wonderful teacher who is committed to getting the truth out of actors, so that they are no longer performing and are really living truthfully on the stage. Fay is special because she not only trains the actor, she also cares about you as a person.” – Eddie Nwachukwu
“Fay Beck’s approach to the Meisner Technique has revolutionised my understanding of the craft of acting completely. I would highly recommend the studio to any actor who is serious about deepening their understanding of character, discovering their emotional truth and developing their artistic integrity. 5 stars!” – Alana Hillenaar
“The Actors Door Studio has changed everything about my approach to acting and it has given me the depth of truth in my craft. I came to the studio as a professional actor and yet the revolutionary Fay Beck has taken me through as an artist has been the most incredible journey I could ask for. So much so that I never left! I stayed and I became a teacher. And I can’t be thankful enough for the beauty, the challenges and the adventure. Recommended to everyone who wants to become an excellent actor!” – Martina Polla Avogadri
“I am so lucky to be taught by the studio founder Fay Beck whose fire, passion and insight are second to none. The Meisner Technique and the additional “Fay-isms” are life-and-career-changing and I am so grateful. This course is for anybody who is serious about wanting to be a character actor and you could receive no better teaching, inspiration or backing!” – Sarah Harwood
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