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Your Body Knows, A Movement Guide for Actors provides the foundation actors need to move with ease and power. It is a practical guide to movement starting at the very beginning: knowing your body and experiencing how it works.
Through the work of F.M. Alexander, Rudolf Laban, and Michael Chekhov, this book offers basic training in movement fundamentals. Its step-by-step process supports the actor's work in any acting or movement training program and as a working professional. The book focuses on three main areas of exploration:
- Body facts – Know your body and its design for movement. Let go of misinformed ideas about your body. Move more freely, avoid injury, and develop a strong body-mind connection.
- Movement facts – What is movement? Discover the movement fundamentals that can serve your art. Explore new ways of moving.
- Creative Inspiration – Connect your body, mind, and imagination to liberate authentic and expressive character movement.
Your Body Knows: A Movement Guide for Actors is an excellent resource for acting students and their teachers, promoting a strong onstage presence and awakening unlimited potential for creative expression. Read this review from a reader - on Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars Put meaning and action into your work
Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2021
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I am always on the look out for an acting guide that is practical, that gives an actor concrete exercises to follow, and this book is that -- but it is something more -- it makes you find within yourself that which turns your work into something that is uniquely yours. Don't get me wrong, this is a book with real concrete exercises to teach you, but those exercises lead you on a path to create something transcendent for you and your audience. It starts easy and simple -- what do I do with my hands? -- but ends with an actor whose body, mind and voice are integrated into a total performance. Andrews and Tift have created a practice that trains the actor like an elite athlete. And I can see the difference in a piece before I use the methods they teach and after, emotion and subtext and meaning suddenly aren't abstract, they are just inside the performance.
Every couple pages, there is a distinct exercise they have created to illustrate the lesson and it's fun -- and sometimes scary -- but if you're trying for a strong performance, perfect.
And if you're a teacher, you've got a great class here.
Order Your Body Knows here: https://www.routledge.com/Your-Body-Knows-A-Movement-Guide-for-Actors-1st-Edition/Andrews-PhD-Tift-MFA/p/book/9780367258825 Also available online at Barnes and Noble (https://www.barnesandnoble.com) and at Amazon.
If you read it and like it, please leave a review! And thank you!