Focusing on personal development areas, I set up the goals at the beginning of the academic year and made a spreadsheet with marks where 1 is minimal and 10 is full engagement of a skill, for my Hard and Soft skills.
This reflective portfolio documents my creative journey throughout the first year in the acting course, theoretical engagement, performance development and collaborative work. Portfolio is covering the progress over the year in different modules, including applied skills from other disciplines such as Voice technique that effectively helped me to develop Acting technique, Movement technique, Intimacy workshop that was applied to Acting technique, Sight Reading and Personal development as an Artist ‘elephant and rider technique’, and Research for performance that connected to Acting technique and personal progress on character development. The portfolio includes reflections on rehearsal processes, theoretical research and feather development as an actor.
Hard skills
| 05/10/2024 | 08/05/2025 |
| Stamina- 4 | Stamina-6 |
| Physical Awareness-8 | Physical Awareness-9 |
| Vocal Awareness-6 | Vocal Awareness-8 |
| Sight Reading-1 | Sight Reading-5 |
| Observing Essential Behaviour-7 | Observing Essential Behaviour-8 |
| Improvisation-7 | Improvisation-8 |
| Accents-4 | Accents-6 |
| Learning process-1 | Learning process-6 |
| Diction-3 | Diction-6 |
| Focus-4 | Focus-6 |
Soft skills
| 05/10/2024 | 08/05/2025 |
| Creativity-5 | Creativity-6 |
| Adaptivity-3 | Adaptivity-5 |
| Resilience-0 | Resilience-4 |
| Flexibility-5 | Flexibility-6 |
| Curiosity-5 | Curiosity-6 |
| Problem solving-3 | Problem solving-4 |
| Organisation-4 | Organisation-6 |
| Confidence-2 | Confidence-4 |
| Realism-2 | Realism-3 |
| Bravery-3 | Bravery-6 |
| Creativity-6 | Creativity-7 |
My main focus and set goals were improving Accent skills, focus, Sight reading, Diction, all the soft Skills and overcoming and gaining confidence in my performance skills. Both of the spreadsheets have effectively helped me to understand the personal progress process and identify skills in which I have a lack of knowledge and confidence. I was able to work on Accents during accents classes, Acting, Sight reading and research classes as well as independent work. After the first academic year, I have a full understanding of where the sounds are created (placement), can break it down by myself, identify RP, Yorkshire, Scottish and my accent. Increasing my Focus during lessons was another goal that I set at the beginning of the year, through learning how to acknowledge my presence during each lesson and how to participate and note the progress in my reflective journal. At the beginning of my first year actor journey, I didn’t have Sight-reading skills, but now I know how to act effectively with the script in my hand, I know how to use proxemics and performance space effectively. I worked on Diction in 1 to 1 spoken voice lessons. We looked at the clarity of the speech and pronunciation based on a book by Edda Sharpe and Jan Haydn Rowles’s How to Do Accents (2007). My voice technique is still in the process, but I feel more confident and can already see the progress based on the feedback. Next year, I am planning on continuing the progress and recording myself so I can use it for evaluation and reflection.
I rated my confidence at the beginning of the first term as 2 out of 10. The process itself was intimidating because everyone who studied in the course was the best in the schools they came from. It was important for me to understand that, regardless of where they came from, the main thing is to understand that we are all at the same level and were selected for this course. Acting is a difficult path and a competitive area of business. After many hours of self-reflection, I am on the way to realism and awareness of how the industry works. I stop comparing myself to others and try not to think about what advantages others have, instead, I think primarily about my strengths and what useful things I can offer the team I work with. This is also evident from the assessment I put in the spreadsheet. All of the selected skills have improved over the year, and I will continue this practice with spreadsheets to further monitor my improvement plan.
On successful completion of the Voice, Acting and Movement module, I focused on learning outcomes such as demonstrating personal responsibility for learning by creating and adapting vocal and physical warm-ups and personal strategies for development. Demonstrate a physical awareness of the range of vocal techniques necessary to effectively communicate using the voice across a variety of media. Develop a technical understanding of my own body, release unnecessary physical and mental tensions and promote efficient use of vocal anatomy and breath. Demonstrate embodied understanding of acting techniques through performance. Apply understanding of ensemble acting processes, including play, spontaneity and improvisation. Evidence of understanding of acting techniques, through the development and articulation of a personal acting process.
This portfolio reflects my evolving understanding of performance, not just as a form of creative expression, but as a space for emotional truth, critical engagement, and social reflection.
In Jo’s lessons, we were working on vocal techniques for the whole year, The purpose was to create an effective warm-up for ourselves and find an individual approach that would suit us the best and prepare the voice to work. At the beginning of the course, I was overwhelmed and struggled to observe new information and techniques. All of the process is concentrated on individual needs, therefore in the end of the term I was able to collaborate Releasing vibrations, Coming on to sound, Sigh of relief, breathing and techniques for opening the channel (jaw exercises, Tong root, tongue middle, soft palate exercises), etc. and include the techniques that were useful for me in the past such as tong twisters for better articulation and ‘sing’ exercise to train the ability to switch the vocal registers and train the range of abilities. The most challenging for me was
I’ve noticed a pattern in my ability to be present during the lesson, which is weak when the topic is new and unfamiliar to me. Coming earlier for the lessons and keeping my eyes open during exercises in the semi-supine position increases my presence during the lessons. I observed more information and stayed focused.
One of the aspects that helped me with learning was analysis of the anatomy of the vocal cords, abdominal muscles and pharynx, I engaged my imagination and Using imagery (diaphragm travelling out on a sound) helps with control and the effectiveness of the technique to engage abdominal muscles and ensure the breath is going to the right place.
When the time came closer to create my Warm-up sheet, I worked in pairs, which helped me to learn the way Isobel and I were able to give her objective feedback. Isobel’s beginning of work with Semi Supine restored breathing technique and tuned in to prepare the body for further work. I think it was a good way of starting a warm-up, and I decided to include this in mine as well. ‘Free breath and strong support can bring power, energy and ease.’ (Houseman, 2002, p. 59)
The transition between exercises, I decided to add Child’s pose, in yoga, helps to calm the nervous system, so I decided to add this also between the stages of standing and lying exercises.
During Chrises classes we went through The Need for Words, Patsy Rodenburg (2023) where she explores techniques such as the Speaking Act, the physicality of words, releasing physical barriers, getting ‘in voice’, focal points, and connecting to text, all of which support vocal freedom, emotional connection, and authentic communication in performance. I explored emotional intentions through Cicely Berry exercises on monologue work (Berry, 2008), focused on the connection between text and speech. We did warm-up exercises for breathing technique, posture, projection, pronunciation and registers. We were reading “I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark” By Gerard Manley Hopkins, where we discovered repetitive sounds, symbolism and orthography.
The focus was on your use of body, breath, and sound and how these enable effective communication, to develop the ability to be simple and direct. The module aims to encourage your sensitivity to words and deepen your ownership of them. We have discovered how words can change you and others beyond their literal meaning and reveal personal truth through developing a connection to language, body and breath. For example, I picked “I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain” by Emily Dickinson, the outstanding lines for me were:
‘ A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating-beating – till I thought
My mind was going numb -’
In this piece of poetry, I noticed a tendency for repetition and a certain rhythm. Therefore, we can see the connection between words and the pace. Dickinson mentioned the Drum and then changed words into the beat of a drum. During the second week of our training, we did an orthography exercise, the aim was to practice our breathing technique and follow the author’s choice of punctuation. We had to walk around the space and read the line from the poem up to any punctuation mark. After that, we had to change the direction and repeat the same with a new line. I found this exercise very useful for noticing punctuation and breaking the comfortable pattern of reading line by line (ignoring punctuation). Also, we had a chance to experiment with our walking pace and notice how it affected our reading. I was always on time and prepared for lessons, which helped me to be present and concentrated.
Reading exercise in the semi-supine position. We had to lie down on the floor in the semi-supine position and read a chosen poem from this position. This exercise is aimed at practising diaphragmatic breathing and relaxing the muscles of the throat, neck and larynx. I noticed that it was difficult for me to relax in this position. I used a book under my head because in this way my neck was not bent, and the air was able to escape from my chest more easily.
For the effective practice of all techniques I learned this year, I’m going to apply them when I am learning the lines and rehearsing at home. I also recorded myself before the assessment to reflect on my progress, I am going to use this method next year as well. Feedback was very important to me this year, I think that it helped me to notice something about myself that I was not aware of. For example, before the voice assessment, Jo pointed out my projection, and I was able to work on it before the assessment. In my final feedback, teachers said that I demonstrate good ability to apply vocal techniques to text or song, utilising skills in breath, posture, tone, articulation, and stamina. Takeaway from my feedback was Pace, to achieve clarity, I need to slow down, and that is what I am going to work on next.
Recordings of a Narrative piece and a Sonnet for Reflective practice.
At the beginning of this block, we started by thinking about how our body moves and what physics works in the body. Some of the essential questions: what muscles do we use to stand up, and what mechanisms are helping us? It was exciting for me to break it down and think about the skeletal system. Teachers helped us to find and learn how to move safely and find pleasure in our movements. In everyday life, we don’t think about every movement and what muscles we use to simply stand up; we just think about the action, and the body follows the usual preselected settings that are set up in our brain. The challenge with the movement interpretations and choreography comes when you are an actor and need to break down all the actions to understand physicality.
We focused and worked on developing greater awareness of movement abilities and their application in your acting and building strength, mobility, flexibility and dexterity. Zoe helped me with stretching exercises. I have never noticed the tension in the external oblique muscle of the abdomen. I consider myself quite a flexible person. I used to do martial arts all my life, but after such intense activities, where you bring all your muscles and tense them, posture and release muscles become a real issue. For instance, I was doing the spine and body twist wrong, even though my right leg was on the left side of my body and my right hand was touching the floor. I’ve never felt anything after this exercise before consulting with Zoe. It didn’t do anything before the correction of my movement. Only when I made a straight diagonal line with my right hand, I feel how my external oblique muscle of the abdomen finally stretched. This is evidence that the technique is effective only when performed correctly. After performing the stretching exercise correctly for five months, over-tensed abdominal muscles are no longer an issue. I definitely can confirm that I brought a lot of the exercises into my everyday warm-up. I noticed progress in how tight and tense my shoulders, jaw, face, abdominals and neck were, compared to how loose and free I feel after the combined sequence of stretching exercises with exercises for mobility and stability. I’m going to continue practising those exercises and document over the summer.
Another thing that should be considered in choreographing is the question of where to start and what should include.
In this order, I discovered that the Viewpoints technique is an essential tool for devising movement.
“Viewpoints is a philosophy translated into a technique for training performers, building an ensemble, and creating movement for the stage. It offers a vocabulary for discussing movement through time and space, including elements such as tempo, duration, kinesthetic response, repetition, shape, spatial relationships, gesture, architecture, and topography.”
— Bogart and Landau (2005, p. 7)
During this year, I worked on Viewpoints, and I discovered a lot about the repetitions and patterns I am inclined to rely on with my movements. For the past year, I worked on understanding and identifying patterns and also on how to break them purposefully and be unpredictable and responsive. Awareness is the first principle that helped me to change and break patterns. We walked around the room whilst using tempo and duration, conscious attention shifted the focus towards analysis of every step. I realised that I am inclined to moderate pace (tempo) and duration. Next, I purposefully broke the pattern and moved differently like something unusual for me. Eventually, with time and practice, I became able to not lean towards the same patterns and respond truthfully and spontaneously through kinesthetic response to what was happening around me in the room. This principle helped me in creating choreography as with a wider range of movement and more opportunities to create a performance. Exploring each of the Viewpoints elements (tempo, duration, kinesthetic response, repetition, shape, spatial relationships, gesture, architecture, and topography), we noticed how all of the above are combined. For example meaning of a gesture and context can change depending on the tempo. For example slow raised hand could come across as someone answering the question at school, while a fast one could mean that a person is just saying ‘Hi’ to a friend. I’m going to use this technique for all my upcoming devising projects, I find it useful as you can choreograph not only heavily movement-based physical theatre performance but and a straight play. Also, I already used some of the principles, such as architecture, topography and floor pattern for acting and research classes. I was playing Jane Payne, detective for acting class, and chose a grid (the trajectory of movement is straight with precise and sharp turns) as a floor pattern to show how purposeful, direct, serious, and reserved my character is.
An important part of my movement journey was a warm-up that I created for my daily practice, as part of an assessment, I received feedback on my Warm-Up. An Effective Warm-Up plan should include the following key aspects: Dynamic warm-up, Static stretching and Body Conditioning exercises. Dynamic warm-up (Aerobic exercises) focuses on the preparation of the body and warming up the muscles, as well as training endurance. Static stretching assists with lengthening and loosening your muscles, increasing flexibility. Body conditioning exercises in my warm-up its core exercises and push-ups. I included them for physical health support and to increase endurance, which became better with every training session. It already showed a result after 8 months of doing it. I can already do 16 push-ups, and at the beginning of the course, it was 5.
My Movement assessment feedback includes that I showed a clear ability to warm up in a focused and effective manner, individually and as part of an ensemble. Found a great sense
of play and connection to the ensemble as part of this warmup, but there is room for improvement and to go further in balancing this with a little more attention to detail and specificity in the movement. Considering the given feedback, my next personal progress plan is to pay more attention to details and focus on how even more beneficial I can make warm-up for my health.
21 Questions from Alex Palmer
I always wanted to learn the acting technique, and this year’s goal was to expand my knowledge about practitioners and their approaches. I learned Stanislavski’s technique at college before, and it was always the only approach I used for character creation. Starting the year with Uta Hagen techniques was stressful at first. The fear of the new was present, and I was questioning why I needed to change the approach if the present one worked. We started to learn the practitioner’s exercises: Physical Destination and Five Senses. These exercises helped me understand how we act as individuals and realise how deeply we can go with imagination to detail characters. For example, what makes us is our memories. By engaging all 5 senses, I remembered an event that happened to me 10 years ago, imagined about the surroundings, what it smelled like in the room, my mother’s voice, what she cooked, etc. This level of digitalisation is a good example of preparation for characters’ work, which will make a believable performance because you know exactly what the place on the stage or off the stage looks like. Alex gave us 21 questions when we worked on the ‘Till the Stars come down’ play, and we had to respond to all of them. My character was Leane. In the script, there is very little detail about this character; therefore, this approach was useful, as I got into character detail guided by my intuition, and imagination given the context(circumstances).
We explored all 10 Uta Hagen exercises, and the most stood out for me was: The Fourth Side. We did the exercise for educational purposes at first, as ourselves and then in characters. The Fourth Side exercise is about imagining the surroundings of the place (room/garden) on the side where the audience is. It is an effective way of engaging the audience and makes a performance believable. I used my imagination and memory to create nonexciting spaces. I left some sticky notes in the space and thought about detailisation and personalised objects. Therefore, when I was in the character, Leane (the character) looked not at the sticky note behind the audience, but at the family picture in a silver frame. Also, she looked from time to time when the family was mentioned.
“Ideal communication between actor and audience occurs when the actor is intensely alive, physically and psychologically involved in fulfilling his character’s needs, in action-within the magic circle of his playing area.”
(Hagen, 1991, p. 154)
I looked towards the audience during performances before I studied Uta Hagen techniques, but I didn’t know why or how to do it correctly. After studying this exercise, it became clear that only by imagining in detail where you are looking, can you invite the audience into the experiences and emotional state of the character.
Exercises like this helped me to create those precious offers that directors are waiting for actors. Another benefit is that I was able to practice it at home and explore the character’s motives and tactics independently and further. I’m going to use all the exercises in the future for character creation.
My Acting assessment feedback focused on Awareness of character/role, including that work demonstrated a good understanding of character through well-considered choices, particularly in my use of clothing and specific actions. These elements supported a strong sense of the character’s psychological and emotional world, and attention to detail helped to ground the performance in truth. There was clear evidence of a psycho-physical connection, with some of my movements and gestures emerging from an internal process. This created a cohesive and believable portrayal in moments. Moving forward, consider how I might raise the stakes even further to bring greater urgency and emotional intensity to the scene while maintaining this integrity. I found the feedback useful for my improvement and am really going to focus on thinking the thoughts and carrying out the actions truthfully and trust that my emotional responses will emerge organically. The lack of confidence was one of the problems in the feedback, so I am going to continue exploring the depth and nuance within my work.
The picture above is a schematic representation of space in scene 3 for The Fourth Side exercise.
Till the stars come down. Playlist
We began our classes by familiarising ourselves with and recalling professional theatrical language and terms. Some of them are The Half (a call half an hour before they will be called on stage), a proscenium arch, Upstage, Down-Stage( closer to the audience), Stage Left (the area on the left side of the stage, as viewed from an actor facing the audience) and Stage Right.
A proscenium arch is a frame surrounding a stage space that separates the audience from the stage. This helps to create a fourth wall close to an imaginary fourth wall between the audience and the actors to help establish the illusion of reality, which is usually appropriate for naturalism. This and other spaces are important details for the performance style and visibility access for the audience.
One of the focuses was Status and Space. Also, we explored 5 Proxemics (where you are in the space, pace, direction you are facing, levels, and distance between people). Controlling your position in Space helps to express the Status of the character to the audience.
“Proxemics, the study of space, is the key to understanding human behaviour.”
(Hall, 1966)
In one of the exercises, we had the script and were given the principles of weakest and strongest to create a scene with our partner. We showed the Status just by using the Proxemics, without facial expressions, physicality and voice changing.
I found this quite difficult for myself as a lot of the time I am moving on stage without thinking about proxemics and introducing the audience to my character, mostly by acting. Awareness and the 2 Extremes helped me to understand the differences
Next, we talked about 2 Extremes with the scale of characters: 10 is the most dominant archetype, and 1 is the lowest. We tried proxemics exercises with a partner, and then we had a bigger group, again with the same script. It was a struggle to scale 2 extremes and give the audience a correct idea of your character on a scale. Therefore, I suggested to my group to put all the characters in order on stage, the ‘10’ was in the centre upstage, the most distant character from the centre was ‘1’, and the closest was ‘8’.
For example, if the ‘Doll’s House’ play by Henrik Ibsen is rooted in realism, performed in a proscenium arch stage. Research lessons helped me to make proxemics work more effectively as I studied the political context of the play. Ibsen’s plays were revolutionary and feminist back in the day, even though the narrator did not call himself a feminist and made his work resonate with the audience by introducing real people’s stories and problems to the audience that they could relate to. Therefore, Nora, as a main protagonist, will be on the downstage ( closer to the audience) or the middle in order to show the importance of the character and focus the audience’s attention on Nora and her worries. This example is real and effective, as I applied proxemics in my Research class when I worked on the ‘Doll’s House’ play and played Nora.
Based on the feedback from the audience, I can tell that we made the right decision and the audience has grasped the correct expression, as they correctly identified who played which character on the scale. Based on positive feedback and outcomes, I plan to apply this technique, combined with Viewpoints, for stage work and my upcoming devising projects.
Also, Sight Reading positively affected my reading experience. Having English as a second language and dyslexia made me fear reading out loud, but when I practised regularly in class, I gained confidence in this skill. At the beginning of the year, I had no idea what sight reading is. Now I can say that I gained confidence in my reading technique, learned new principles of proxemics, know how to make bold choices for character and became aware of theatre styles and approaches.
One of my favourite lessons this year was Animal Study. Animal study is a movement technique that is based on studying animal movements and characteristics. I was excited to start this movement technique section, as I am interested in ethology and puppetry.
For this term, I wanted to choose an animal that would be challenging to recreate and somehow connect with me. I was interested in mammals that walk on all forth, but it became one of the biggest struggles. I followed the Zoo guidance from Vanessa Ewan and Debbie Green’s chapter on ‘Transformation: Animal and Anthropomorphic’ in Actor Movement: Expression of the Physical Being.
Tilda gave us amazing advice that was useful and turned out to be truthfully applicable to me: ” The more ‘nerdy’ you get about your animal, the more detailed and powerful your transformation will be.”
One of the tasks was to prepare a targeted solo warm-up that will serve in our unique animal studies process. I did specific joint warm-ups for wrists, ankles, necks ( such as circle and side-to-side rotations), as I had to spend 6 weeks on all forth, and it is a lot of unnatural joint pressure for humans. I combined targeted warm-up with my daily warm-up, which was developed in Movement classes and was mentioned earlier. Research helped me to support theoretically the practice. I learned African spotted hyena anatomy and compared it to humans. The main focus was on the Backbone shape and length of the backbone, including the animal’s neck and tail. I look at the animal’s length, size and at how the limbs extend from it, Breath, Weight, Space, Way of Seeing, Rhythm, and Balance of the Senses.
This approach helped me to find where the movement begins, how hyenas change positions from standing to sitting and lying down. I found that they have quite short spines and long legs, because of their features, they move dog-like, even the genetically hyenas are closer to cats. Sharp and distinctive walk was difficult to recreate, but the trick in animal study is that you can adapt your body as far as it can go ( as the anatomy is completely different), and the second, no less important, is imagination. When I believed that I was a hyena, the feedback from the group was positive, and even though it is not fully accurate, it is believable. Also with practice, my movement became more accrued, I took Ownership of my process ( bringing props, strengthening wrists, etc and was proactive in learning, and was returning to footage to refresh on ‘idiosyncrasies’.
I observed the influences of the breath on the movement and behaviour of
The animal and physically empathise with the breath.
The weight of a female hyena is the same as mine; therefore, it was interesting to explore how I can move my weight with the different impulses coming from the hind limbs. The environment is another important component that influences the animal’s look and behavioural habits. My hyena was slow and heavily breathing due to the hot African climate, especially in its resting positions.
I used my research to observe animal motivations and their responses, such as food, tiredness, need to find a safe space and etc. The last task was to create a human character based on our animal’s characteristics. My character was young and ambitious Leah, who had a sister (because hyenas are energetic and live in groups), also movement impulse was based in legs(same as hyenas). I am going to use animal studies for creating human character further, as it gives variety for character physicality detailing.
Overall I learned how to act as an animal and bring some of those qualities on human characters. Overcame obstacles like physical challenge and ownership the process. Also I gained relative experience to puppetry.
By Vanessa Ewan and Debbie Green. Published 2015 by Methuen Drama;
Page 139
Animal study
Playlist•17 videos
This portfolio allowed me to chart my development and creative process throughout the first year. I feel more confident now about my Soft and Hard Skills, especially Sight Reading and Accents, which were the most challenging learning skills for me. Finding the right approach and independent work made a noticeable difference. I am not afraid anymore to read in front of people and try new accents.
I noticed a positive trend in the marks from the table, and they all increased, which indicates my improvement in all skills. I consider this system to be very effective, and I plan to use it in the future. I also plan to do it more often, once every three months, to track the trends and patterns that have already developed. I think it can also be useful for determining at what time I can be the most productive and assimilate information more easily. Also, one of the effective methods of reflection and improvement for me is video recording. Recorded video can be immediately viewed to see the technique of breathing/singing/movements from the outside.
Acting, Voice and Movement exercises already showed their effectiveness during the assessment time. Moving forward, I intend to continue practising daily my Vocal and Physical warm-ups over the summer, to build up stamina, endurance and keep myself in good form before next year. And listen to the Radio and Podcasts with RP accents to master the accent.
Considering personal feedback from the assessments, I am proud of my achievement this year, also I feel motivated and inspired. Collectively, these experiences have reshaped how I engage with the stage—as a space of presence, intention, and transformation.
While my skills developed technically, I shaped a new vision of different works and styles. Theatre could be powerful and political, A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen is an example of that.
Drama school could be a challenging and overwhelming experience. The best advice that gave me peace was from Andy Neman’s book “Golden Rules of Acting”, on page 19, chapter 2, Drama School.
“Remember, the best part about drama school is that you spend all day acting. Cherish that, you may have a long wait until it happens again”
(Nyman, 2012, p. 19).
And that is exactly what I am going to do!
