Movement Training for the Modern Actor

This book is the first critical analysis of the key principles and practices informing the movement training of actors in the modern era. Focusing on the cultural history of movement training over the last one hundred and fifty years, it offers a conceptual framework for the understanding of key approaches to the training of the professional actor’s body. The volume looks in detail at the influence of the leading figures in movement training — Laban, Alexander, Copeau and Lecoq — on twentieth century professional actor training, and is informed by interviews with students and staff at leading English drama schools. Mark Evans re-evaluates the significance of movement training in the professional drama school by examining the ways in which movement training shapes the student as a professional actor, as well as considering the extent to which it offers a new understanding of the body as a site for performative resistance to industrialization. Despite the publication of a number of ‘how to’ books on movement training for the professional acting student, this is the first text to look behind the curtain and write the unseen biography of the actor’s body.