You may be an actor or dancer who wants to diversify your skills and knowledge, someone who works with actors (a dance or movement teacher for example, or a theatre director with a movement history), or a practitioner (from an allied field of sport/holistic practice), who wants to enhance your understanding of various practical/theoretical interfaces regarding movement in contemporary performance. This may extend into classical theatre, physical and devised theatre, puppetry, animation, film and opera.
The MA Movement Studies includes specialist, vocational teaching in the field of movement for actors, production practice for movement directors and bespoke movement placements at Central and in other professional theatre settings (both in Britain and internationally). The course allows opportunities for development of individual movement specialisms and their application to the work of actors.
Tradition, experience, eclecticism and innovation epitomise Central’s understanding of movement training for the theatre and this unique course has been created in that spirit. The course capitalises on Central’s resources, innovations and history in the field of actor movement, both at postgraduate and undergraduate level. Students will belong to the fine history of movement at Central, from Litz Pisk to the present.
The course provides the student with a rich and diverse landscape within which to address movement practices in relation to a wide range of established theatre processes and innovations in the field. Practical movement teaching and movement directing on selected projects offer a range of potential applications in the fields of theatre productions, puppetry, animation, classical theatre, film acting, and contemporary and devised work.
Students are given the opportunity to develop their own practice as a movement specialist according to their interests in this emergent and innovative field, and will undertake potentially groundbreaking research into movement.
You will be taught by tutors who are current professional practitioners in their field of movement pedagogy, movement direction and movement research.
You will undergo a formalised and systematic actor movement education that coincides with the emergence of a widespread social interest in all aspects of physicality and the body. There is a firm emphasis on Laban’s movement philosophy and Lecoq’s spatial and physical techniques, but the overall approach is eclectic and celebrates a variety of methods. You may expect to encounter the work of movement practitioners, such as Feldenkreis, Bogart, Roth, Suzuki, Alexander, Pisk, Humphries, Barba and Grotowski.
Teaching methods place equal emphasis on individual and group development, through individual tutorials, group seminars and workshops. Practical sessions are designed to enhance your skills as a movement teacher or movement director. You will also undertake placements both within Central and in professional settings, such as other conservatoires or theatre, opera, or film organisations.
By the end of the course you should be able to: demonstrate and communicate an informed understanding of actor movement; teach and direct actor movement and its allied subjects; undertake further independent research and self-development in the field; and reflect analytically. You should be able to go on to work within professional theatre, film and television, movement education settings or, indeed, within drama schools.
