SPONTANEITY – ENDURANCE – CREATIVITY
The Gaiety School Of Acting, the National Theatre School of Ireland, offers 1 and 2 week Viewpoints & Suzuki Training workshops at schools and theatre’s across Europe and in the United States. For more information or to discuss booking, please call +353 1 679 9277 or email stephanie.courtney@gaiety.stage-secure.com today.
Viewpoints workshop PCPA California Sept 2013
Viewpoints with Music from a 4 week workshop at The Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts (PCPA) in California, Sept. 2013.
The Viewpoints and Suzuki training I received from Stephanie Courtney was fundamental in shaping the performer I am now. It informs the way I see space, movement, and relationships every time I step onto stage or into the rehearsal room.
Tobias Shaw
Professional Actor, New York & California
Viewpoints Actor Training
Viewpoints in Mask workshops at Theatre of Change’s International Theatre Making Festival, Athens, July 2013
Spontaneity is a vein of gold for actors, directors, writers and designers. It unlocks an artist’s instincts and allows us to express ourselves in surprising, insightful ways with complete freedom and without judgment – but true spontaneity can be very difficult to access, much less cultivate and harness.
Viewpoints training accesses spontaneity by expanding the artist’s kinesthetic awareness and awakening physical responsiveness through experiments with space and time. This distinguishes Viewpoints from improv by removing any dependence on story, character or play writing, which releases the actor from needing to be interesting or inventive. By stimulating exploration of the exterior world, and our physical responses to it, irrespective of any need to make meaning, the actor is absolutely free to discover his surroundings, to express his innate responses and to develop intended actions that evoke change, which deepen an actor’s intuition and instincts.
Artistically speaking, Viewpoints, and specifically the training provided by Ms. Stephanie Courtney, offers the strongest set of tools I access as an actor and director. Timing, composition, negative space, every nuance and detail has enabled my work to be bold and refreshing each time. The key Ms. Courtney gives you is the ability to reach within yourself to recesses unimaginable and unlock all the shades of human nature. To miss a day of her training would be unimaginable. The Suzuki training enables one to become disciplined, aligned with your breath, and awakens the artistic warrior within. Just when you think you know all you can about courage, stamina, strength, and power, her coaching sends you another level deeper, and you have an intrinsic sense that you’ve only begun scratching the surface.
Regina Ainsworth
President, Defining Moment Entertainment LLC.
Viewpoints workshop in Athens July 2013 at Theatre of Changes’ 9th International Festival of Making Theatre
Suzuki Actor Training
Power, endurance and physical precision always distinguish exceptional performers from the crowds of actors called to auditions, in rehearsal rooms, on stage or in front of a camera. Vitality is not an innate quality, it must be cultivated and strengthened, like an athletes. Through a series of precise and demanding exercises, Suzuki training disciplines the actor’s body, mind and voice to command attention and to express the full dynamic potential of the actor. Suzuki training awakens the warrior in every actor to create and harness power in performance.
I worked with Stephanie on Viewpoints and Suzuki when I was just seventeen. The training opened up my eyes to look at art and life in a way I hadn’t before. Viewpoints taught me awareness: of myself, my fellow actors, and the world around us. Suzuki taught me discipline – taught me not to give up when my brain said I should, because my body is far stronger and more capable than I believe. These are lessons that every actor should not be without.
Siobhan Doherty
MFA in Acting, 2013
University of California, Irvine
Viewpoints & Suzuki Together
The combination of Viewpoints and Suzuki training officially began in 1992, when Tadashi Suzuki and Anne Bogart founded the Saratoga International Theatre Institute (SITI). Since then, the two techniques have been taught in tandem across the United States.
Many people wonder why or how these two seemingly disparate methods go together. Each method is viable in their own right and do not necessarily need to be taught together (to this end, GSA does offer workshops of either Suzuki and Viewpoints as well as both). The reason they work so well together is their complementary aspects.
Since Viewpoints taps into spontaneity and pure expression based on impulsive responses, those responses will be determined by the actor’s physical capabilities, habits and limitations. By complimenting Viewpoints training with Suzuki, actors gain strength, stamina, coordination, agility, control and physical expansiveness. Actors need all of the physical training that both of these methods demand and training in both is exponentially more beneficial than training in only one.
Types of Actor Training Workshops
The Gaiety School of Acting offers, weekend, 1 week and 2 week workshops and master classes in Viewpoints and Suzuki at theatre’s, actor training programmes and Universities. Schedules and training protocols are tailored towards the goals of students and training needs. For more information or to discuss booking, please call +353 1 679 9277 or email stephanie.courtney@gaietyschool.com today.