The Mind and Body Connection

The Mind and Body Connection
By:Elizabeth Ann Townsend
Published on 2009 by

In my Master's Thesis, I intend to explore my application of two distinct methodologies, the Alba Emoting technique and Michael Chekhov's technique, and the impact both have had on my professional work, which includes acting and teaching. Dr. Susana Bloch, an internationally known research psychologist who specializes in neurophysiology and psychophysiology, developed Alba Emoting, a scientifically proven system of accessing real emotions through what she calls emotional effector patterns. These patterns consist of respiratory-postural-facial combinations for each of six basic emotions: anger, fear, joy, tenderness, erotic love, and sadness. She observed universal patterns for these basic emotions through experimentation and discovered that these specific and naturally occurring emotions can be induced by an individual through the conscious control of breathing rhythms, facial expressions, and body attitudes, (gestures and posture) when executed precisely. Her intention was to create a technique for accessing specific and repeatable organic emotions without bringing harm to the actor's psyche. Though her initial interest was in developing Alba Emoting for the actor, psychologists and others have found the technique extremely useful. Michael Chekhov worked with Stanislavski, Artistic Director of the Moscow Art Theatre, for 16 years as an actor. In 1923, Stanislavski named Chekhov the Director of the Second Moscow Art Theatre where Chekhov experimented and taught his own technique for the actor. Though Chekhov originally studied and applied Stanislavski's system to his acting, he did not agree with Stanislavski's use of Affective Memory which he found limiting and potentially harmful to the actor. Instead, Chekhov expanded on Stanislavski's theory of the method of physical action. Chekhov discovered that through specific and repeatable physical movements, the Psychological Gesture, the actor could awaken his will or action center. The P.G. is a tool used by the actor to increase her desire to act or to do. Chekhov understood the subtle nature of the mind/body connection and how this connection could be accessed through imagination, improvisation, psychological gesture, archetype, ensemble work, and atmosphere. Dr. Bloch discovered this mind/body connection through the physical actions of breathing patterns, physical postures, and facial expressions that when correctly utilized ignites the mind/body connection. The combination of these techniques gives the actor an excellent venue to access easily and effortlessly the desired energy with which to act in any given circumstance. In order to analyze the application of these two techniques, I will specifically address the Alba Emoting intensive workshop I participated in during May 20th through May 29th of 2006 at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. This workshop was prior to my development of Mrs. Webb in Our Town; therefore, I will address how I utilized this technique in my process of creating and performing the role. I will also discuss the impact of the Michael Chekhov technique on my acting since September of 2007 when I began to study and experience it. In order to demonstrate the possibility of implementing these two techniques in actors' training in general, I will examine how my learning of these techniques could be applied, as an interdisciplinary pedagogical method, to my teaching of acting. As an illustration of the marriage of these two techniques, I will discuss how each technique informed my work in the 2007 production of A Christmas Story at the Cleveland Playhouse. Through this discussion, I intend to prove that Alba Emoting and Michael Chekhov's technique can be joined to create a highly effective means of bringing clarity, specificity, and emotional truth to a role.

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