Constantine Stanislavsky Research Paper

Outside of medicine, I spend my leisure time dancing and choreographing. My love for dance and music stems from my early childhood. I recall listening to Disney songs and “choreographing” dance moves – moves that appeared as uncoordinated, but exquisite loose wiggles. As a result of my parents’ high expectations and strict upbringing, dance was an important activity because it served as a safe haven away from the stress and pressure I felt as a child. Dancing was, and is still, my source of joy and amusement.

In this written essay I will compare and contrast several acting techniques used by Stanislavski which has helped create a more ‘naturalistic’ performance. Examples of performances I participated in and how Stanislavski’s techniques were incorporated during rehearsals and whether these techniques were successful and why.

important foundation in understanding the broader scope of how dance can be seen as a

Dance is the beginning of the unit and therefore serves as an introduction to mental and emotions.

It was Stanislavski’s and Strasberg's intent to make method the staple of acting. The method has single handedly elevated some of the greatest performances in history. It helped actors go from superb to immense. Robert De Nero is a method actor. Many will say De Nero had the greatest acting performance of all time in the movie “Raging Bull” in 1981. His performance changed his career and also won him an academy award that year. De Nero would go on to have a hall of fame type career and in many ways the method had a big part to play in it. As much upside there is to method acting there is a dark side to it as well. There is a danger in that emotional connection that many actors feared could be catastrophic. A prime example was an actor by the

For many years, the principle ideas for acting were established by Konstantin Stanislavski, who was a Russian actor and director. Stanislavski’s practical ideas and theories which were called his “system”, were eventually altered by those who succeeded him. When Stanislavski’s former students brought Stanislavski’s system to America, it still hadn’t been fully completed, thus it it suffered alterations in Russia. The alterations made to Stanislavski’s system were contorted by Lee Strasburg into what came to be known as “ the Method”. This altered version of Stanislavski’s system became the standard for acting around the world. Stanislavski’s methods concluded that emotion couldn’t be the foundation of a performance, but rather it was to be the outcome. “The actor must understand

While I listen to music after I finish a test, my body can’t help but subtly move in a bobbing motion to the beat. To my school peers, I may seem like a conscientious student who devotes her time every night in an attempt to master her school subjects. While this may be true, my whole heart is committed to expressing my innermost thoughts through the movement of my body. Some days feel like static on a broken television with the buzzing ringing through my ears. Some days it’s all storms, and I’m drenched in grey. But when I start to dance, I find that my mind doesn’t tremble as often. When I count the times I’ve hit the floor with my hands and feet, I remember that without dance, I would not be Monica

Acting, known by most as the imitation of life. Many theorists have gone to extreme lengths to try to recreate the behaviors of man in everyday life, whether it be Stanislavski's method of using past experiences, Chekhov’s technique of imagining a situation, or naturalism’s use of the environment. But there are some that deny this goal of acting, they believe theatre can be so much more when it isn’t bound to the restraints of imitation. Tadashi Suzuki was one such man, who believed the goal of acting should not be to be realistic, but for the actor to use all means necessary to convince the audience of a truth. In order to do this, the actor must have complete control of his body, achieved through following the Suzuki Method.

When I was three years old, I was exposed to the world of dance. Mostly, classical Ballet at the time, but I was soon to be emerged into the wonderful art form that is shared by so many all around the world. It is questioned as to how dance, specifically Ballet, is still relevant in this modern time. The simple reason is that it is loved by so many artists whom have passed that passion onto generations of students, who are eager to understand this complicated art form. I was lucky to be immersed into the dance world at such a young age; it is difficult for me to imagine a life without long rehearsals all leading up to a rewarding performance.

Scope: Dance Research Journal, Vol. 39, No. 1, (2007), pp. 3-24 Published by Congress on Research in Dance

interconnected and has been defined as the psychotherapeutic use of body movement as a process that

Stanislavski was a great believer in formal training for the actor. His interest in deeply analysing qualities of human behaviour was meant to give the actor an awareness of such human behaviour and how easily falsehoods, or aspects of behaviour that an audience can detect, are assumed by an untrained or inexperienced actor in performance. Stanislavski once insisted that all actions that a person must enact, such as walking, talking, even sitting on stage must be broken down and re-learned. In his book, translated into English as Building a Character, describes the correct way of walking on stage. Stanislavski developed his own unique system of training where actors would research the situation created by the script, break down the text according

The objective in lesson 1, we can see does not only broaden their understanding by introducing a new word and its meaning, but also demonstrates how this can become a stimulus for dance creation. As with lesson 2 they learn to use every day movements as a starting point for movement design and this is continued in lesson 3

The art of the stage actor is the most subjective, abstract process of all the arts. Musicians, painters, and dancers all have to develop a technique that is rooted in aesthetic tradition and proven by the masters of their fields. Historically, the techniques of great actors have not been expressed in written form, and their performances lost after the moment of their occurrence. There is, of course, a reason for this lack of information. Actors are dealing with the most elusive and transient medium possible- human emotions. The idea that one should have something as organized as a "technique" or "method" for dealing with these emotions seems somewhat

The first reason why teachers should integrate dance into education is that dance increases students’ attention and reaches students of different learning types. One study was done to determine whether lessons that incorporate movement were effective at generating student’s situational interest. They compared the outcomes of movement and non movement lessons in second and third grade reading and math classes. The teachers provided one week of lessons that included movement and one week of lessons that did not. Students were asked to use their bodies to illustrate specific concepts they were taught. At the end of the study, the teachers rated students’ interest levels, and they found that students were more excited by and engaged in the lessons that integrated movement than those that did not. Surprisingly, they also found that the dancing did not hinder the amount of content learned during the lesson (Lindt and Miller). Dance could be a