ACTION: to Act in Motion
‘As far as I’m concerned all theatre is physical. As Aristotle says, you now theatre is an act and an action, and he didn’t mean just the writing of it, he meant that at the centre of any piece there is an action’ – Simon M.Burney.
If action is at the centre of any theatrical performance and the actor is the storyteller embodying this action to communicate to an audience whose primary mark of communication is body language… then it stands to reason that the actor needs to be skilled in using their body to communicate and tell stories.
Movement studies at Oakfields College is all about learning to tell stories through the action of the physical body. We teach you how to go back to basic human movement that has been untouched by the culture or society you’ve grown up in; an opportunity to go back to neutral and become a blank page waiting to have many different narratives etched into it.
From understanding the way the body moves independently, to how the body moves in relation to other bodies, from dance based performance, to mime technique and to a physicalising of written text; movement studies offers a variety of body communication tools. We encourage you to find your style of physical communication and to direct other bodies in storytelling.
When telling a narrative through humans, the body is an essential tool to creating a visceral experience for the humans watching i.e. audience. Our senses of touching, tasting,smelling, hearing and seeing are all continuously at work as we come into contact with the world around us. As performers and creatives, we want to make use of all those senses; not only to better understand the story we are telling, but to also allow the audience to fully be immersed in the world we are creating. This allows them to identify with the action on stage or screen,to understand the story on a wholistic level.
Movement studies at Oakfields College aims to give you a wholistic and embodied confidence in performance so that you may be bold enough to tackle any role with physicality, excellence and nuance; capturing the imagination of the casting directors and an array of audiences.
