Viewing assignments and attendance of Boston-area dance performances help students identify visual, musical, and kinesthetic underpinnings of choreographic structure. Basic compositional techniques discussed and practiced with an emphasis on principles such as weight, space, time, effort, and shape. Principles of musicality considered and developed by each student. Working together, students create short compositions to help them understand the range of possibilities available when working with the medium of the human body. Selected viewing and reading exercises augment classroom work.
Class attends at least two professional dance events in the Boston area.
Through studio exercises, students address issues of honesty and creativity in the theatrical moment, and begin to have a sense of their strengths and limitations as communicating theatrical artists. Regular readings in acting theory also put studio work in context. Concentrates upon freeing the natural voice, culminating in the actor's ability to work in any style. The whole progression of Linklater's approach to voice is taught. Although the focus is acting, students not primarily interested in theater but interested in developing their voices may find this class useful.