‘Feldenkrais®​ ​for Actors – How to Do Less and Discover More’

Thomas Kampe

Thomas Kampe PhD; Bath Spa University

Keywords: movement for actors, embodied acting, somatic actor training, theatre and cognition, Feldenkrais Method

Abstract

Review of ‘Feldenkrais for Actors – How to Do Less and Discover More’ by Victoria Worsley, illustrated by James Humphries; Nick Hern Books London 2016; 272 pages

How do we train actors to develop an organic competence of their craft? How do we educate young people to become agile, creative, sensitive and affective performers in a cultural context that affords an increased disembodiment of everyday life experience? How do we encourage open-ended inquiry within a corporate increasingly goal-oriented and fast-paced vocational educational training system?

Victoria Worsley, London based actor and Feldenkrais® practitioner, published the book Feldenkrais for Actors – How to Do Less and Discover More as a resource for students and teachers in 2016. Her writings emerged from her rich experience as an artist, teacher of Movement for Actors in Drama Conservatories, and as Feldenkrais practitioner who works with the general public. Her book offers a convincing resource for student-actors, professionals and pedagogues, with an historical introduction that links the work of Moshe Feldenkrais to theatre practice and to the current work Feldenkrais/Theatre peer-practitioners in the UK, a large experiential part linked to the needs of the student actor, and an appendix with useful links to resources for further study.

Author Biography

Thomas Kampe, PhD; Bath Spa University

Thomas Kampe (PhD) has worked as a performing artist, researcher and somatic educator across the globe. He works as Senior Lecturer for Movement/Acting at Bath Spa University, UK, where he co-directs the Creative Corporealities Research Group. Collaborations include work with Liz Aggiss, Hilde Holger, Julia Pascal, Tanzinitiative Hamburg, Somatische Akademie Berlin, and with Carol Brown on re-embodying the diasporic practices of Modernist choreographer Gertrud Bodenwieser. Thomas’ research focuses on critical somatic legacies. He recently co-edited Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, Vol. 9. (2017) Bodily undoing: Somatics as practices of critique, with Kirsty Alexander. Thomas is a practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method®. Since 2015 direction of international symposia: (re)storing performance (2015); Theatre, youth, trauma and Europe in crisis (2016); Bodily Undoing –Somatic Performance Cultures and Activisms as critical practice (2016); Beyond Forgetting 1938-2018: persecution/exile/ memory (2018). He currently co-directs the international Body IQ Berlin Festival 2019 with Somatische Akademie Berlin (SAB). He is the Co-editor of this Volume of the Feldenkrais Research Journal.

https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/our-people/thomas-kampe/

http://www.thomaskampe.com/

‘Feldenkrais®​ ​for Actors – How to Do Less and Discover More’

Abstract

Author Biography

‘Feldenkrais® for Actors – How to Do Less and Discover More’