Introduction

My first year at Leeds Conservatoire has given me a lot of insight about what I want to achieve while I am studying here and understand what standard of performer I want to be when I finish my training. I have very much enjoyed my skills training and found it to be fruitful to my development as an artist but also as a person. To maintain and recollect the skills I learned over the course of the year is important. I believe that to be able to examine and reflect on my training is a necessary step towards my improvement as an actor. I have kept a reflective journal over the course of my year to keep track of my progress while studying I will now examine what that reflection has changed in my practice and what I still need to improve on.

I am using the Gibbs’ reflective cycle (Figure 1). I was introduced to this method during an Artistic Development session, where I learned how to use the Gibbs’ reflective method for reviewing my creative practice. Since then, I have used it to reflect on some certain experiences I have had while training, for example, I used it to reflect on my process work during the acting assessment. This has helped me become more aware of my progress and lack thereof. when I have used it I have seen what outcomes have come from the reflection and why. I found the Gibbs cycle to be very helpful and accessible to use; the six stages provide a framework that can lead me through my reflections in a detailed manner without being unsure where to start or feeling overwhelmed. I also believe it has been very effective for me because it allows me to evaluate the things I have done well, as well as my shortcomings. Something that makes the process very effective is the way it lets me evaluate the specific details of the things I did well and what needs improvement. This makes the subject of what I am reflecting on easier to improve on afterwards. In conclusion, using the Gibbs’ cycle has not only focused and detailed my reflections but has also amplified my ability to absorb the experiences and take what I have learnt from it towards my practice in the future. I plan to make this a staple of my artistic practice moving forward. I will set aside time to reflect using this model and complete all the stages thoroughly, then use what information I have gained from it and put it towards progressing my technique and creative process.

Ensemble Week

In my first two weeks at Leeds conservatoire, I did an ensemble project about greek theatre. It was called the festival of Dionysus as it was reference to the Greek god Dionysus who is the god of wine ecstasy and most importantly theatre the festival was seen as the beginning of western dramatic arts so I think it’s quite appropriate place to start my training at drama school . The main goal of this project was to build a rapport between my new classmate’s (figure 7) who I was meeting for the first time. We had to create a devised piece of theatre based on a Greek myth; we ended up choosing the myth of king Midas and the golden touch. The story plays out that a greedy ruler who is granted his wish that everything he touches turns to gold. After realising this blessing prevents him from eating, he accidentally turns his beloved daughter into a statue. We wanted to use this story and coincide it with a modern retelling having them overlapping over one another, to show how the theme of greed is just as topical now as it was in ancient times. I felt that the experience was helpful towards my progress because it allowed me to know my peers and what they work like, so we became more comfortable as an ensemble. and while I was lacking in the technique and confidence I have built over the course of this year. I still am fond of the time I spent on the project.  

Acting Technique

Acting assessment

For my acting assessment, I had to create a five-minute improvisation based on the character Wilson from Ruffian on the Stair, applying Stanislavski’s Method of Physical Action to create a truthful and believable performance. The task required me to use the ideas of logical physical actions, objectives and tactics, and psychophysical connection and apply them to a scripted text. During the improvisation, I focused on maintaining clear intentions and responding naturally within the scene. My teacher noted that the performance followed a logical chain of actions and demonstrated a strong embodied understanding of acting technique, particularly through my use of actions like my character writing a letter to his brother, which led to my character’s emotion in the scene. During the assessment, I felt confident in staying in character and maintaining focus throughout the improvisation. But I was also aware that I was holding back creatively and emotionally in some moments like it says from my feedback in figure 3, where I “demonstrated a good psychophysical connection” but “at times you pulled back when the work began to deepen, which limited the overall impact of the performance”. I felt that I had delivered a believable and technically competent piece, but I also felt that I had not fully challenged myself or made enough bold choices. My feedback further confirmed this, highlighting that my objective was clear, there was room to make bolder and more ambitious choices. Overall, I believe the assessment was successful because I demonstrated a clear understanding of Stanislavski’s techniques and maintained a believable characterisation throughout the improvisation. My physical actions and intentions helped ground the performance and create realism. I also showed engagement with acting processes such as the “magic if” and began using ideas from practitioners, including Rudolf Laban with the Laban efforts, Uta Hagen with techniques such as endowment, and Viewpoints with physical ideas to experiment with such as kinesthetic response. However, both my reflection and the feedback identified that my choices were often too safe. I avoided fully committing to higher stakes and more dynamic physical or vocal choices, which reduced the impact and tension of the scene. Reflecting on the assessment, I believe my lack of commitment came from a fear of overacting or making the wrong choice. Although I understood Stanislavski’s method of physical action, I did not always embody it practically. By over-prioritising control and logical chain of actions, I limited emotional depth that could have made the performance more compelling. The feedback reinforced this by encouraging me to raise the emotional stakes, strengthen the character’s objectives and how they are portrayed to the audience, it is also important to develop a deeper understanding of practitioner techniques and how to use them. I now understand that truthful acting requires full commitment to objectives, actions, and making bold choices.  In conclusion, the assessment demonstrated that I have a solid understanding of practitioner approaches and can apply them effectively enough to create believable performances. I successfully maintained character and used physical action to support the scene’s development. However, the experience also highlighted the lack of ambition I can have when in performance. To progress further as an actor, I need to commit more fully to the character’s objectives and let the action lead to the emotion while integrating practitioner techniques in a more consistent and developed way. 

“In your choices lie your Talent” – Stella Adler- The Art of Acting

This quote by Stella Adler is a perfect example of how your choices as an actor are paramount to your efficiency in creating memorable, engaging performances. To improve future performances, moving forward I want to take greater risks and experiment further with my process so that bold choices feel more natural to me. I will continue exploring Stanislavski’s methods alongside other practitioner approaches such as viewpoints, Laban, Hagen and other practitioners to deepen my understanding and strengthen my acting process. I also aim to experiment more with my physicality, vocal expression, and emotional stakes to create performances that are not only believable but also more dynamic, engaging, and emotionally resonant.

Uta Hagen

 Starting on the 6th of January I did a 4 week block using the exercises of the practitioner Uta Hagen. Her practice is built upon her practical exercises and core principles of rooting performance in authentic behaviour and physiological truth over forced displays of emotion. The exercises we covered when being taught Hagen’s techniques were the fourth side, changes of self, moment to moment, endowment, occupational waiting and then creating a scene using any of those techniques. The first technique we covered was the fourth side; the technique is based around the idea of creating a private but believable environment on stage while not shutting out the audience. We were asked to think of a real phone call and then recreate the conversation as well as the circumstances that the call was taken in. You use points in the room you are performing in as your anchor for your eyes using your imagination to see objects that were in the environment that you took the phone call in. The effect of this exercise is that it allows the actor to feel grounded in the space and makes an actor forget that they are being watched. The next exercise we did was the changes of self. We approached it in a similar way to the fourth side exercise in that we had to recreate a phone call, but the difference was this time we had to recreate three different calls with three different people and show how the self you present changes automatically depending on who you are talking to. The third exercise we did was moment to moment or the immediacy exercise. We had to create a scenario where we had lost an important item and search for it but genuinely not knowing where the item was and frantically look through the space to find it. The effect of this exercise was to stop actors anticipating the reactions while performing and just stay completely present and responsive. The next exercise we did was occupational waiting. We had to choose a specific environment and circumstances to occupy yourself with. We had to justify stationary waiting by engaging in physical and psychological tasks this allows you to be present on stage and occupy your mind and body not just wait for your next line. The goal of this exercise is to ensure that as an actor, your character never stands “doing nothing” but is actively living, thinking, preparing, and listening. The next exercise we did was endowment. We had to create a scene with a specific prop, and you make your body react to the reality that said object. The goal of this exercise was to give ordinary stage props purpose; you use your sensory imagination to imbue an object with its specific physical or emotional qualities. When we finished these skill sessions, we were asked to prepare a scene using a select few of these techniques and put into practice I chose fourth side, changes of self and endowment.  

Figure 6

I felt that the fourth side exercise was a massive breakthrough for my progress over the course of this year because something I have always struggled with is my eyeline, I often find my gaze to fluctuate when performing, so this technique is exactly the sort of thing I should add to my acting process to improve my connection with the audience. I think this because of the feedback I got from my teacher when I performed this exercise, he thought that the technique grounded me in the space and said “please always do this” referring to the technique, as it fixes my issues with maintaining a consistent eyeline so it is something I should use going forward as a part of my process. In the clip (figure 6) an acting student of Uta Hagen’s is doing the fourth side exercise she is making a phone call to her dad, and it plays out as a naturalistic conversation. After the scene finishes the actress remarked that the technique was very “anchoring” and that she forgot that people were watching in the audience. Uta Hagen herself after watching the performance remarked it had “a marvelous freedom, without anxiety.” This is useful for me because it proves how the fourth side exercise can improve an actor’s ability to connect to the audience without the feeling of being watched and live presently in the world of the character. I also felt that the changes of self technique was especially useful as it showed me how to portray the multifaceted personality of a character and how they can alter depending on their circumstances. I could definitely use this technique in the future when exploring a character in the preliminary stages of rehearsal when I am starting to build an understanding of a character so I would be able to see the difference self’s that the character presents. I felt that the immediacy/moment to moment exercise was a particularly useful exercise because it allowed for me to remove the expectation of knowing what was going happen in a scene. While this technique will not always be fruitful to use but I still think that if I am anticipating at all when performing, this technique can remedy that issue and allow me live presently in the space when acting. I felt that the occupational waiting exercise was useful as well because I believe that it occupies the mind and body while performing. I think that the technique really enhances your ability to be present in a scene when you are not speaking so it can be an exercise I can add to my process if I am struggling occupying myself when acting. I felt that the endowment exercise was especially important to my progress as it has made me understand how to give objects significance in a scene, the added details give value and allows truthful acting though action. This is a technique I want to implement in my process in the future. When I applied a few of the techniques to a devised scene, I felt that I showed a basic understanding of the techniques, but I could still improve how I implemented them into my work practically. In conclusion I found the Uta Hagen block to be an incredibly useful set of techniques that enhances my ability to act in several aspects while I could have engaged with the techniques better I think I have still learnt many valuable lessons from them and I intend to use them in the future.   

“The actor must know that since he, himself is the instrument, he must play on it to serve the character with the same effortless dexterity with which which the violinist makes music on his. Just because he doesn’t look like a violin is no reason to assume his techniques should be thought of as less difficult.” – Uta Hagen – Challenge for an Actor  

This quote by Uta Hagen gives a perspective on how I should approach these techniques in the future. the “instrument” that is referred to in the quote is the skill and technique of acting and it is a skill that would need be practiced in the same way you would approach practice as a musician. So I will use Uta Hagen’s exercises to sharpen my technique and practice on a regular basis so that I do not become lackadaisical when approaching new work and even improve further. I will apply the techniques and experiment with them over the summer to keep myself sharp for second year.   

Screen Acting

Something I was looking forward to learning at Leeds conservatoire is screen acting because we get to do weekly screen acting classes in first year which is rare for actor training courses. The reason specifically I was excited to do screen is that I found on-camera acting to be difficult before training here as it was something I had very limited experience in so the prospect of having weekly classes for screen was exciting as I could become more comfortable with on camera acting as well explore the different genres of work on screen that you would be employed in as a professional actor. At first, we started learning about soap opera acting. This was interesting because acting in soaps is a particular skill set that is not completely the same as acting in anything else on screen. it is fast paced dialogue, and broader expression was interesting to play with on camera, but I feel I was lacking in clarity of action I think I was struggling with the idea that in soaps you’re action needs to be very simple since there is not much room for subdued acting because of the wider camera shots and quicker pace of scenes this is something I will work to improve on in the future. Next we looked at how to approach subtle acting on screen, the exercise we were given quite simple lines to say but were also deeper inner thoughts to action those lines I found this work incredibly useful because it made me realise how it is possible to portray an emotion so clearly on screen without having to over demonstrate it to the audience. Next we looked at comedic improv where we given a situation and had to make a scene out of it this was a challenge because we had think on our feet and do comedic acting but not over demonstrate the idea that is was a funny scene so my way around this was to focus on character humour which allowed for a funny performance that was for camera . I felt that this block of screen acting was challenging but ultimately quite useful because it gave me insight into how I would approach comedic screen acting in future. The next thing we did was commercial acting we started by being given the information on the style and tone of commercial acting. How it differs from the other genres we had been looking so far was that the main focus of the piece is the product it is promoting rather than telling a story. Actors are supposed to be highly expressive, comforting and be likeable to make the product look better. We had to film multiple self tapes some with ridiculous scenes that we had to film but this was because some adverts can be quite wacky at times, so it is important I have experience in this area if I ever have to encounter it in the industry. 

This video clip (figure 8) is a self tape I was set in class to film. It was a fake audition for a betting company. While I feel I created an engaging and interesting tape I think I did not focus on selling the product as the dour tone of the piece would not encourage people to engage with the product so to remedy this I will in future focus on a more uplifting casual tone to make people engage with the product that the advert is selling. For our screen acting assessment we had to do an in person faux commercial audition. We treated it as if it were a real audition where I was given a script just days before the assessment and had to learn it which is industry standard and be open and welcoming to the people auditioning me in the room. I felt that I really struggled in this assignment as I could have better prepared because the stress of the situation got to me in the moment and I felt my performance suffered because of this so in future I will do much better to prepare myself for a audition of that sort in future. In conclusion I have found the screen acting classes to be immensely rewarding challenge over the course of this year and I believe I am much more confident and comfortable acting on camera now than I was when I started my training. 

“The camera magnifies everything you do” – Patrick Tucker – Secrets of Screen Acting 

This quote by Patrick tucker is an insight on how screen acting can be different to acting on stage and that instead of having to play to an audience you must play to the camera. This is something I am still getting to grips with, so I will practice by filming self tapes over the summer to improve my confidence on screen even further so am I able to explore how to effectively express myself in the medium of screen.  

Vocal Technique

Voice Assessment

It is an extract from Lustrum by Robert Harris which is a historical fiction about the life of Marcus Tullius Cicero the ancient Roman statesman. in the recording I voice the narrator Tiro, who is portrayed with a slightly heightened version of my voice, Cato who is depicted with a unsavory and twisted voice, I got the idea to depict him like this because how he is described in the books “that harsh and remorseless voice grating away like a blade on a grinding stone.” And Cicero who is depicted as the commanding well spoken leader of the Roman republic at this point in time at least. The books follow Cicero’s journey from a young novice lawyer to a legendary statesman. For his voice I chose a deeper resonance and strong clarity to show his way of commanding the room as a great speaker. I believe that my fervid interest in the book series and the topic it covers contributed to my performance in the assessment. I am deeply fascinated by these historical figures so trying to figure out how to depict them to an audience was an exciting challenge for me. In conclusion I think that my voice assessment is a good indicator of my progress in vocal technique over the course of the year, but I still want to improve in some areas and of course maintain the progress I have made so far.  

“It is a good idea to think of developing your voice for general use, rather than just having a ‘stage’ or ‘performance’ voice. This way it will have greater flexibility and feel more owned. Also, you are less likely to tire or damage it. A great deal of vocal tiredness and damage is the result of demanding social use rather than demanding performance use.”- Barbra Houseman – Finding your voice 

This quote by Barbara Houseman is excellent idea of what my approach should be for developing the voice that I will aim for. Instead of just improving for the sake of performance if I aim to improve in my daily life, I will be able to support my voice way stronger than before because I am consistently sharping my technique so I am always prepared to speak for a performance.  

Movement

Viewpoints

When learning about movement our main technical work was focused on the philosophy turned movement technique of viewpoints. Viewpoints were originally created by choreographer Mary Orville in the nineteen seventies but then later adapted and expanded by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau in the nineteen eighties. Viewpoints are a set of nine principles of movement through your time and space on stage with the purpose of training performers, building an ensemble, and creating movement for the stage. The Nine viewpoints are spilt into time and space. The viewpoints of time are tempo, which is the rate of speed that a movement occurs. Duration, which is how long a movement or sequence of movements continues. Kinaesthetic response, which is a spontaneous impulse motion which occurs in response to external events. Repetition, which is the repeating of something onstage. Then there are the viewpoints of space which are, shape, the outline of your body in the space. Gesture, which is a movement involving parts of the body with a beginning, middle, and end. Architecture, which is the physical environment of which you are working and how it can affect movement based your awareness of the space. Spatial relationships, which is the relationship and distance between performers and objects in the space and topography, which is the design or pattern created by the movement onstage. We were introduced and explored these movement principles over the course of 7 weeks and then we also applied these principles to devising movement later in the year. I feel that the viewpoints technique is particularly useful for enhancing physical awareness on stage and ensemble collaboration. This can make devising much easier to accomplish as viewpoints make you abandon rigid heavy thoughts while performing and make you responsive to what is around you. While I think I have an understanding of viewpoints I also think I am capable of much more freedom as I can sometimes find myself caught up in my own thoughts at times when I have been devising movement. 

The video clip (figure 2) is when we as a small group were devising movement based on stimulus of the text Antigone and objects that are office based. This clip is an example of how I have used viewpoints to create devised movement as we used in the idea that I can be present and dynamic in a movement space but at the same time I can certainly make bolder choices and experiment more. In conclusion I can use viewpoints in an efficient manner, but I can still be more innovative when creating and experimenting with movement.  

“What do I value in acting? And if the answer is depth, vulnerability, rawness, surprise, spontaneity, soul, danger and, above all, truth, how can I fuel these with Viewpoints? Yes, Viewpoints can be used to make incredibly sophisticated and intricate pieces of choreography. Eloquent form let’s say. But personally, Viewpoints continues to interest me more as a way toward emotion than away from it” – Anne Bogart and Tina Landau – The viewpoints book: a Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition

This quote from the viewpoints book is a perfect explanation of how viewpoints is certainly a physical technique it doesn’t have to be used for only choreography it can also be used to further progress an actor’s process. In the future I will experiment with viewpoints when in the process of creating characters as the physical framework of viewpoints can create an immensely fruitful playground for physical bold choices, when approaching how I will play a character.  

Conclusion

In conclusion, I am happy with the progress I have had over the course of this year although it has not been perfect I have certainly faced challenges but I believe that adversity is only there to teach me how I can do things better in the future. I have been introduced to a large variety of techniques that have improved my craft as an artist and techniques I will continue to apply going into my second year. I will also very excited second year as we get partake in more projects as well as skills lessons, I much enjoyed the current seconds years American theatre projects so I am very excited for the prospect of that, so I can use all of the technical skills I have learnt and apply them to a text. I think I still am able to progress much further in second year with the foundations I have built this year so I can progress to the standard of performer I want to be.

Bibliography

Adler, S. (2000). The art of acting. New York: Applause Books ; Tonbridge, Kent, U.K. 

Uta Hagen (1991). A challenge for the actor. New York: Scribner’s ; Toronto.  

Tucker, P. and Stamp, J. (2014). Secrets of screen acting. Abingdon, Oxon New York, Ny Routlege. 

Houseman, B. (2002). Finding your voice : a complete voice training manual for actors. London: Nick Hern Books. 

Shakespeare, W. (1609). Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Thomas Thorpe. 

Harris, R. (2010). Lustrum. London: Arrow. 

Bogart, A. and Landau, T. (2014). The Viewpoints Book: a Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition. London: Nick Hern.