The Actor’s Compass: A laboratory on dynamics in space with Tom Bostock

Location: Goldsmiths, University of London

This lab session will explore the ‘Actor’s Compass’: Dynamic directions in space.

Directions: “we immediately recognize what they are, and what each direction means to us. We quickly understand how we can use it. These directions are forever corresponding with human interactions. They are connected to all the sensations, and to all the actions actors involve themselves with” (Lenard Petit, The Michael Chekhov Handbook for the Actor, 2010, p.22).

We are as familiar with the Humpty Dumpty’s fall as much as Eve’s. Our understanding of direction is the course which something takes. What can the course the character moves in reveal to us?  All characters move in different directions, poetically, literally, figuratively, spatially and imaginatively. The religious cleric is pulled between the heavens and their earthly desire, the oracle is yanked forwards in time with by a foreboding omen and the war hero is called backwards by the memory of death.

Michael Chekhov’s technique allows an imaginative approach to experience the truth of the movement. Beginning with the simple process of moving in a certain direction in space, the compass provides an instrument to gradually unlock a deeper understanding of character, revealing its qualities, desires and the way it relates to the world.

We will play with the many lines that the compass offers us, building on Graham Dixon’s: ‘Six Directions in Space’ and Lecoq’s understanding of directions in space we will explore and ask what the compass can show us, and how we can sense it. Can it reveal the essence of the character and their world they inhabit? Can we re-route the character and what are the repercussions or discoveries in doing this? What can the compass be applied to within the theatrical landscape? And can the compass lead us to an inspired performance and performance making? We will work with already existing characters from text as well as devising new characters.

Led by Tom Bostock