In this workshop, participants discover how to create a range of physical and vocal qualities by accessing the Archetypes that exist within us all.
Working with Archetypes is actor training for the voice, the body, the intellect and the imagination. It is essentially physical theatre training, creating a vocabulary of movement qualities in the body, and consequently a vocabulary of vocal qualities. This is a dynamic technique for actors developing characterisations with and without text.
Archetypes offer a means of acknowledging, and consequently utilising the intrinsic instability, or paradox which is at the core of life, which the actor strives to embody in performance and which audiences recognize as ‘truthful’, ‘real’ and ‘spontaneous’.
The Archetype (Arche – original; type – pattern) is not a particular, living (or even one-time living) human being, but rather a familiar, yet heightened idea of a human being, from which we may categorize each other, our friends and enemies, dream figures and iconic ideals. Unlike stereotypes, which can be defined as fixed, unvarying forms, embodying simplified conceptions of ways of being, Archetypes retain a quality of being somehow ultimately indefinable, while being instantly recognizable. It is this paradox of the Archetype that provides the actor with the ability to ‘be’ the character s/he is playing without ever ‘not being’ him or her true self.
- Archetypes are unique yet universal ideas of human-type beings (or ways of being human)
- Archetypes are recognizable in myths and folk tales from all cultures throughout the known world and from our dreams
- Archetypes are familiar, yet heightened ideas of ways of being human
- Archetypes are ultimately indefinable, yet instantly recognizable, unlike stereotypes, which are fixed, simplified conceptions of ways of being.
- Archetypes are paradoxes that provides the actor with the ability to ‘be’ the character s/he is playing without ever ‘not being’ him or her true self.