Tag: movement

Kitchen

Hello …crow to headstand to backbend

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This vacation I had a vision of myself dancing in the grass. Doing many things I at this moment have never done. I. Was inspired to create a combination of movement and practice it over my travels these past two weeks.

It was a cartwheel on the right then on the left a body roll then roll down into a crow then head stand hold then into back bend and GET UP.

I have not yet gotten up but through videoing myself and watching it back I was able to adjust my movement from the external eye and and I completed all the others..

I am able to get up from a mid height…like a ottoman or bed but not the floor exactly…

But this inspired me and kept my mind fluid….and gave it something to PLAY with.

I am thinking this is what the new movement work I will be studying will continue to do.

Monotony is the death of me! SKT

S

Kitchen

Hello….Republic of Movement.

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Miami treats me like Alice in WOnderland…the moment I decide to look for a KEY is the moment the entire city seems to split open and reveal itself yet again.

I was lead to a place two blocks away from the school my son attended for three years. This means I drove near it often and yet…never SAW it.

I went to my first class a few weeks ago and then the next day my second and the approach to movement aligns with my internal philosophy of kindness and I am intrhalled..

I can see how one can become a groupie but I like being a groupie..I was that with POLE and Bikram and so why not and this…it includes outside and travel and fluidity and connection which is what I want to train in.

I have no clue why or what will become of this for me but as a student of movement I want to know how to play in this extended mindset with peaople in MY city that already are in this conversation.

I feel my body was a peace here…not punching or climbing or lifting…it is all flow and fluid and form follows function…so if I am to stay in this beautiful state of flow that I have found within myself I much protect it with a training that honors that approach..

I look forward to seeing what a year with Ido Portal Trainers takes me and my work..
I am going to consider it my next schooling-higher education… and treat it with the same respect —-

I hope to travel with it and perhaps meet Ido and then bring my actors to it or teach the other students the game to create stories from love…through these bodies of movers.

Exciting thoughts are ticking my ears but I am ahead of myself….

Xoxoxo SUSIE

Kitchen

London vs American Acting

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Pretending to be a role is very different than being the role. It gets really messy when you discuss this with the acting community… because the style of off shoots of METHOD acting Have become integrated in our teachings. The teachers of today were among the first or second generation of this approach. It is imbedded and systemic…it can’t be undone…like the vine that a German guy brought to NC and it now covers all the trees and looks like a forest but it is a vine killing the forest itself…looks can be deceptive.
I went to London in 1995/6 and worked with the best teachers from RADA that we now working at Webber Douglas I was kind of like the vine…going there to learn what they were doing but in a way…starting to expose the alternative American training to these classical teachers…perhaps they saw the future…a. Bunch of emotionally unstable artists…just waiting to happen.
Here is a perfect example of how my American approach to acting was received.
I was the ONLY American actor there and they accepted me into a class of post graduate students. I was beyond thrilled and thankful.
we had midterm performances and I did a monologue that I thought was amazing. I mean I broke down on stage crying and opening up my heart. I was amazed how OPEN i way, how connected to my true self…and what happened after that was that the school threatened to kick me out.
They were very confused by what I was doing and said…”why are YOU crying? That’s not your job! That is the job of the audience!”
It was such a wakeup call. I was sitting across from an acting instructor and she was holding a tissue box and I was just crying again. Now from her critique of my amazing breakthrough movement…and she was like..
“what the hell are you doing?” That was ugly and sloppy and not professional at all”
all I see in my memory bank is a constant flow of tissues.
I am not sure I ever fully adapted their approach as my first language but it gave me structure to my work in many ways.
After they suggested I consider leaving the school I cut my emotional connections off and started making fun of the teachers ( this this was s suggestion of one of the teachers themselves) in My final showcase monologue of a high strung woman…..pretending to Steward Pierce our high strong voice teacher.
This time I was greeted with accolades…. They were fully impressed with my IMPRESSION of a character- my ability to ACT…not become…
I remember this one teacher was like do you want to know who we were all most surprised by? I was feeling like such the pathetic student I was like…no…
She smiled and said. YOU.
It was such a huge shock and wake up call.
However. I rarely see classical teaching anymore and even London theater…in their contemporary theatre seemed so become so American- talk about the tail wagging the dog.

Kitchen

Letting GO of ….N.Y.F.A

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I never wanted to be an acting teacher. I have a Masters in Classical Theatre from London but the idea of teaching never really accured to me.

Fast forward many years and I wind up teaching my MOVEMENT technique to entry level acting students. Students who for the most part never had an acting class and they are In thier first year of college.

I brought with me my WARM up…what I had created in the pole dancing room at IRON FLOWER gym on biscayne….MISS THIS ROOM SO MUCH….and I added to it a few of the required curriculum for thier degree.

From here I created a gamification of movement that opens the artist and also allows them to heal themselves and let go of trauma- theirs of their characters.

The process was simple and I felt it can be used to help other people in the community as well as link the community to the actors.

My last semester working there I invested 10 people from here commnunity to be our guest. We worked as a team to help them release their stories and it was amazing. I knew at that moment that the training we had can infact thelp NON actors and Allon people who were searching for a way to express themselves and deal with something an alternative to “Therapy”

I presented this to the head of the theater department and along with that several internship opportunities. He responded NO to all the attempts to extend the school outward. It became very clear again that this was not the place for me to GROW anymore and it was time to say goodbye.

I had one talk with the New head of the Miami Beach school who sided with the Head the acting department and then one talk with the head of the international school who was down from New York.

THey both lasted hours and they both came to the same conclusion. What I had to offer wasn’t really their front burner and although I enjoyed teaching I didn’t enjoy the ceiling the program had on what I could do with with teachers.

What I learned is people want and need to be seen in thier LIFE,..

People’s lack of being heard or seen without judgement is lacking and once a person feels heard they can begin to let go of the story they are telling…it is the unhearing …the lack of it landing on loving ears that understand and accepts .that perpetuates once’s story.

PErhaps that is why once I spoke with the HEAD of the school and he heard me and my thoughts I was free to leave the school without any sense of resistance or negativity.

I even went so far to meet with one of the other teachers that I was told approached acting form the opposite direction and we had coffee then he took my class and now he also SEEs what I am doing…

All this allowed me to feel HEARD and regardless of the outcome I was free to peruse my next adventure…

MAybe share without needing people to agree. Share becasue you don’t need them to agree but rather you need to speak your truth –
And it is on you t one able to share without existence becasue it is in how you deliver the information.
If can be aggressive or hurtful or just soft and simple and with the lease about of energy as possible. That is when you will have the lease amount of boomerang energy on the return and you can exit in that window…. of FLOW

S