Spring 2005
Fully Enrolled

ARTS 641 (DCMV ST; THST)
Acting and Movement in Time and Space: The Viewpoints

Rubinstein,Kim S

01/27/2005 - 05/05/2005
Thursday 06:00 PM - 08:30 PM

Davenport Campus Center Room 2

The Viewpoints is a system of movement and action, training actors and performers to be alive in the moment by increasing awareness of time, space, and the gestures of the moving body. Developed by dance instructor Mary Overlie and refined by director Anne Bogart, the Viewpoints system provides a structure for creating movement and character related to the specific needs of a theatrical text or experiment, and it offers a shared working vocabulary for actors and directors working together on a production. Currently the actor-training method of choice, it trains the actor to be prismatic, kinesthetically aware, and a vital part of the creative process. We will learn the individual Viewpoints, put them together into compositions, and use its principles toward monologues and scenes from playwrights such as Tennessee Williams, Anton Chekhov, Tony Kushner, and Harold Pinter.

In this performance-centered course, attending and participating in class is fundamental to the success of all students' growth in the work. In addition, students will be responsible for working on group compositions, duet scenes, ensemble scenes, a mid-term performance, a final performance, and one essay assignment on one aspect of Viewpoints. A working journal will be part of the class weekly assignments and responses.

This course will benefit actors, directors, and those whose non-theater work involves the "performances" of teaching, public speaking, running meetings, and leading teams. No previous movement or acting training is necessary.


Kim Rubinstein (B.S. Northwestern University) is the artistic associate at the Long Wharf Theatre. She has directed more than 25 plays including the world premieres in Chicago of Pan and Boone (Carey) and Eloise and Ray (Fleishmann); seven Shakespeare works; and she was national tour director for Tony Kushner's Angels in America: Millenium/Perestroika. She has taught acting, directing, and text analysis for more than 15 years at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. She continues to teach in the Steppenwolf Ensemble School for Professional Actors.

ENROLLMENT INFORMATION

Consent of Instructor Required: No

Format: Seminar

Level: GLSP Credits: 3 Enrollment Limit: 18

Texts to purchase for this course:
Anne Bogart, THE VIEWPOINTS BOOK (Theatre Communications Group), Paperback

Eugen Herrigel, ZEN IN THE ART OF ARCHERY (Vintage), Paperback

READING MATERIALS AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323

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