Real inspired acting
is never DOING,
it is always HAPPENING
Michael Chekhov
Agenda
The Studio
The Michael Chekhov Studio is an international centre for training in the performing arts, situated in Brussels at the heart of Europe. It offers performing artists advanced training based on the organic truth of acting, the radiance of the presence, the mastery of energy and the sharpening of the imagination. It is based on the psycho-physical practices of Michael Chekhov and Lenard Petit. The studio works in partnership with the Michael Chekhov Acting Studio New York.
The benefits of training
"Transformation is what every actor consciously or unconsciously longs for." Michael Chekhov
The training provides the keys for:
- achieving a high level of presence, creativity and energy on stage
- producing a performance that exerts the power of fascination
- experiencing the joy of the presence of mindfulness by existing intensely in his/her body and its sensations
- leaving one’s comfort zones to experience mystery and the unknown in a performance
- achieving a new relationship to the stage, a relationship that is fuller, and more open and creative.
Michael Chekhov
MICHAEL CHEKHOV (1891-1955) was an internationally acclaimed actor, director, and teacher. Nephew of the famous writer and dramatist Anton Chekhov, he was famous for his audacious talent and inimitable characterizations. Stanislavsky called him his “most brilliant pupil,” and likely altered his own acting system after Chekhov’s influence.
Marked by the Soviets for arrest, he escaped to the West in 1928. In exile, he impressed and astonished European and American audiences and critics with his tragic, comedic, and operatic roles and productions.
After his stays in Germany and France, he settled in England and co-founded the Chekhov Theatre Studio at Dartington Hall, where he further developed his method. In 1939, he relocated his studio to America, where he continued to train young actors and lecture to experienced professionals.
ABOUT THE CHEKHOV METHOD
The Chekhov method is a ‘psycho-physical approach’ to experiencing the truth of the moment. It is founded on creative principles, such as working with impulse, archetypes, atmospheres, sensations and gestures. Chekhov training and practice awakens and elaborates the actor’s artistic imagination, strengthens the capacity for intense inner action, and loosens habitual restrictions to expressive emotion. It delivers techniques and exercises that respect and unleash the actor’s highest nature. Professional application of the method satisfies the actor’s longing for transformation.
Characteristics of the method
The technique is psycho-physical, and always takes the external movement of the body as its starting point in order to create an inner life in a process that is profoundly alive and deeply connected to the here and now.
This technique aims at the organic presence through a purely physical imagination, economising on any prior psychology. Psychology and circumstances arise as a result of the process of embedding images or impulses, and are therefore used more as a starting point for the creation of life on stage.
Instead of tapping into his own personal history to create the character, the actor plunges into the reserves of his imagination and his subconscious. This considerably accelerates and facilitates the creative process.
With its recognition of the true nature of the actor-human being, the Chekhov training represents a healthy and dependable approach to freeing the actor’s talent and highest potential. Hand in hand with the development of the actor’s whole instrument, the method facilitates the acquisition of a comprehensive professional craft.
Training
NATALIE YALON
artistic director, actress, acting teacher
Belgium
First Prize in Drama from the Royal Conservatory of Liège, and a graduate in Philosophy from the ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles). She specialises instage productionand Russian theatrical pedagogics in Russia: in Moscow’s Gitis (the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts) and the Vakhtanghov Institute; her teachers are Vladimir Skoritz, Andrei Droznin, Boris Rabey, Slava Kokorin. She is also following an intensive training programme at the Michael Chekhov Acting Studio in New York with Lenard Petit.
http://www.studiomichaelchekhov.org/NATALIE YALON
artistic director, actress, acting teacher
Belgium
CATHERINE DELASALLE
voice teacher, Feldenkrais teacher
France
Songwriter and performer born in Paris. She travels a lot, and has many jobs before starting a career as an ambassador for French songs in Flanders. Alongside her career as a songwriter, she is interested in the voice in all its forms, and participates in many experimental projects. For many years she has been putting poetry into music and writing her own lyrics. The meeting with the Feldenkrais method offers him the ideal framework to develop his experiences, to continue to evolve and to start teaching. She has taught at the Lassaad International Theater School, at the Brussels Conservatory of Music, and conducts numerous workshops and workshops in Belgium and abroad.
http://www.catherinedelasalle.be/CATHERINE DELASALLE
voice teacher, Feldenkrais teacher
France
BORIS RABEY
stage and film director, acting teacher
Russia
Boris Rabey graduated from The Russian University of Theatre Arts (GITIS) and from the State Institute of Culture, Moscow. Specialization: Directing of the Dramatic Theatre and Performance Pedagogy, under the direction of Maria Knebel (Stanislavski’s last assistant). Artistic Director of the « Masterskaya » Theatre (Moscow).
He has been invited to teach Master Classes and has staged over 30 productions in countries including Russia, France and Belgium.
He has been invited to teach at the Conservatory of Liège and at the Royal International Summer Academy. He regularly teaches at The Russian University of Theatre Arts .
Since 2006, he has directed over 10 serial dramas for Russian TV.
BORIS RABEY
stage and film director, acting teacher
Russia
MARJOLEIN BAARS
stage director, acting teacher
Holland
Marjolein Baars works with clown and Michael Chekhov acting technique since 1991. She creates performances, gives workshop all over the world (US, Australia, Russia, Turkey and Europe) and applies theatre tools to social fields such as dementia and health care. Her latest interest concerns the elements, the planet and how to contribute to a fundamental change in society. www.tinyhero.nl, www.destichtingkoffer.nl, or www.unitiative.nl
MARJOLEIN BAARS
stage director, acting teacher
Holland
INBAL YALON
actress, acting teacher
Belgium
Following drama courses at INSAS in Brussels, at the Conservatory in Liège and Leipzig, and at Vassiliev's school in Moscow, Inbal Yalon has been an actress and a stage director for over 15 years. She is also a teacher and a coach for actors. She has worked with numerous stage directors in Belgium as well as in other countries. Having a Master in Linguistics and Foreign Litterature, she also translates litterary works or art-related texts.
Further, she is the co-author of Sex Politex, and the author of “L’histoire ludique et détaillée du Clitoris” (The Clitoris’ Playful And Detailed History), which she stages and plays in Belgium and abroad.
INBAL YALON
actress, acting teacher
Belgium
LENARD PETIT
stage director, acting teacher
USA
Lenard is an actor/director who resides in New York City. He has been working in the the theater for thirty years collaborating with other artists to create original works for the stage , cinema, and television. He has directed plays and performance pieces on and off Broadway and in as well as out of the United States. As an actor he has performed in some works of such notable directors as Julie Taymor, Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman, Ping Chong, and many others. Mr. Petit is the Artistic Director of The Michael Chekhov Acting Studio. As one of a handful of teacher students trained by the original members of Michael Chekhov’s Theater School his knowledge of the technique coupled with his gifts have brought him to be recognized as one of the foremost teachers of this technique in the world.
As a member of the international Michael Chekhov Association, he has been invited to teach Master classes at the Moscow Art Theater, The International School for Film and Television in Munich, Helsinki University, as well as acting workshops in Denmark, Amsterdam, Madrid, Berlin, Zurich, London , Riga, and Irkutsk Siberia. For the past 14 years he has been teaching Chekhov Technique in the MFA Acting program at Rutgers University.
