In-Person Alexander Technique for the Actor I

Starts: Tuesday, October 11, 2022
In-Person - Tuesdays, 6:30-8:30pm, 8-Weeks

  

The Alexander Technique, originally developed by an actor to save his own acting career, is the "glue" that integrates your acting, voice, speech and movement training. At its heart is the conviction that we are perfectly designed to express an impulse with honesty. Understanding how your physicality and your psychology are coordinated is the connection that Alexander provides. The AT is a process for recovering your responsiveness to the moment without reliance on habit, without awkwardness. It is the practice of a simple set of skills for letting go of habitual mannerisms and postures through which you can move and breathe with freedom and ease. You will be able to perform more efficiently and authentically, open to new experiences and to what partners have to offer. 

Class activities include awareness exercises, gentle hands-on feedback from the teachers, basic body-mapping, practicing the coordination of your mind and body in a theater exercise, improvisation or with text. 

The course content will focus on these four topics: The Actor's Body in Motion, The Actor's Breathing, The Actor's Presence, Ease of Being for Creativity.

TEACHER BIO

Belinda Mello is an Alexander Technique Teacher, Director and Movement Coach. She brings over 30 years of experience with theater, dance and mask to her classes. She has served on the faculty of the Brooklyn College Theater Department, The SITI Conservatory, Terry Knickerbocker Studio and maintains her own private practice, AT Motion in NYC.

Belinda has co-produced the Freedom to Act Conference on Acting and the Alexander Technique and is a founding faculty member of the Alexander Residential Workshop in Spokane. Her article (co-authored with Teva Bjerken of NSD) “Cultivating a Lively Use of Tension: the Synergy between Acting and The Alexander Technique” was published in Dance, Theatre and Performance Training Journal.

As both a performer and director she has been part of a 2007 Obie Award winning production (Peculiar Works Project) and the Prospect Theatre’s DarkNight project. She has provided movement coaching for productions at the Women’s Project and Nomad Theatrical Company. Early in her career she worked with Anne Bogart, Tony Kushner and Wendy Woodson and she has performed in diverse settings: The Istanbul International Theater Festival, St. Mark’s Church/Danspace, The Yard in Martha’s Vineyard, Bread and Puppet Resurrection Circus.

Certified (Alexander Technique International) since 1989, she draws inspiration from master Alexander Technique teachers Marjorie Barstow, Dr. William Conable, John Nichols. Additionally, she is certified to teach Margolis Method as a professor/instructor.  Belinda holds a BA from Hampshire College and an MFA from Brooklyn College/CUNY.  Website: www.AlexTechMotion.com

 

  

Location: 
In-Person Classes - 520 8th Avenue, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10018*
Online Classes - held via Zoom

*Valid government-issued ID required for entry to the building

    Please Note:

All payments for classes are non-refundable (unless a class is canceled).
If you need to cancel a class for any reason, you must notify us by email at least one week before the class begins, and we will apply a credit to your account for a future class.
As our faculty are all working professional actors, directors and playwrights, we reserve the right to change teachers at any time.
Commitment is for the duration of the session. THERE ARE NO CREDITS OR REFUNDS FOR MISSED CLASSES. If you discontinue any class before the ending date of the session, you forfeit your fee.