Stanislavski training and mindfulness – being in the moment

Abstract

‘I understand that an artist must be capable of stopping time and allowing for spaciousness, but now I realise that to welcome and cultivate stillness and quiet into my work, I must welcome and cultivate stillness and quiet into my own life.” Stanislavsky’s “creation of the life of the human spirit” is an exciting aspect of his work and the underlying spirituality is something that he kept partially hidden in his writing due to the political situation and Soviet ideology that he was living through at the time. It is this sense of spirituality and a meditative approach to the work of the actor that this paper explores. Specifically, an exploration of mindfulness and drama techniques. Mindfulness helps us to increase our awareness. We learn to do this by paying full attention to all our experiences, including our bodies, thoughts, moods, and emotions and to the small changes within them. There are many parallels between mindfulness and Stanislavsky’s thoughts on acting, from the need for an attitude of openness and curiosity and being in the moment through to an awareness of our physical sensations and a control over our attention. Bogart’s ideas of spaciousness also influence this examination of the practice of mindfulness and concentration. This article analyses the calmness that mindfulness can bring through the teaching and learning of Acting and Performance students at London South Bank University, and how we can use it to focus on being grounded in our body and the world around us, going about our everyday business in life and on stage. “Let the tenseness come, he says, if you cannot avoid it. But immediately let your control step in and remove it.”

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