Bella Merlin Presence Workshop 21 June
On 21 June, 12.30-4.30, Bella Merlin will conduct our sixth and final Presence workshop of the series here at Exeter.
Coming from a training in the Russian School which combined Stanislavsky, Michael Chekhov and Jerzy Grotowski, Bella’s particular emphasis in the exploration of performing presence will be in many ways remarkably simple: what happens between two physical bodies in the performing space?
Her investigation will try and unravel some of the complexities arising out of that simple encounter when actors undertake - in Stanislavsky’s words - to 'get each other in each other's grasp'. This process also connects Grotowski’s via negativa and how the actor strives to eliminated inner and physical blocks between action and impulse.
Putting the notions of 'radiation' or 'communion' under the metaphorical microscope, Bella will work with actor Miles Anderson, whose extensive experience in theatre, film and television has challenged his own understanding of 'presence; in the moment of performance, whether in front of the camera or in front of a live audience.
Through a series of silent etudes, in which the actors' attendance to the minutiae of each other's facial, physical and (most importantly) energetic changes prompt impulses in the moment of performance, Merlin and Anderson will work towards an analysis of text (taking a scene from Three Sisters between Vershinin and Masha and/or a scene from Anna Karenina between Anna and Vronsky). This in turn will lead to an investigation of how the spoken word alters the actor's psycho-physical state in the moment of performance: to what extent is 'the present' nudged out of the picture by memory-testing the pre-learnt lines?
Bella Merlin trained as an actor in the UK and at the State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. She has worked extensively with director, Max Stafford-Clark in co-productions between Joint Stock and The Royal National Theatre, including David Hare’s The Permanent Way, She Stoops to Conquer and A Laughing Matter. Bella’s many other roles have included Masha in The Seagull, The Governess in The Turn of the Screw, and Celia in As You Like It, with numerous performances on radio and television.
Bella’s wide ranging publications include: With the Rogue’s Company: Henry IV at the National Theatre, Oberon Books, 2005; Konstantin Stanislavsky, Routledge Performance Practitioners, Routledge, 2003; and Beyond Stanislavsky: The Psycho-Physical Approach to Actor-Training, Nick Hern Books, 2001.
Bella Merlin is Lecturer at the University of Exeter.
Audience places for the workshop are free. The workshop will take place in Theatre Studio 2, in Drama's new complex, The Alexander Building, Thornlea, University of Exeter. Details of how to find us are here http://www.projects.ex.ac.uk/performing-presence/How%20to%20find%20us.php
To book an audience place at the workshop please contact l.m.dowsett@exeter.ac.uk
An introduction to Bella's is available through the Presence Project Collaboratory at http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/350
Images reproduced courtesy Bella Merlin..