“Think with your whole body.” – Jerzy Grotowski
Based on Polish Experimental Theater Director Jerzy Grotowski's training methods, this high-energy, movement first workshop asks participants to execute deliberate, rigorously physical choices while keeping the channel open for spontaneous, fluid impulses.
Through dynamic physical games, precise body isolations, and deep vocal exploration, participants will use Grotowski's techniques to help bypass intellectualized analysis and ideas and cultivate a heightened state of performance readiness. This class offers a structured training framework for performers seeking to elevate their physical authority and ensemble responsiveness, and find greater command and aliveness onstage.
Thursdays
September 24th, October 1st, October 8th, October 15th, October 22nd, October 29th
12pm - 4pm
in the Skunk
About the Instructor
Layna Fisher is a teacher, director, and generative artist operating at the forefront of contemporary actor and clown training, somatic research, and cross-cultural performance. She is an innovator evolving Grotowsk into a modern informed training, the creator of Grotowski & Clown, the pioneer of the highly demanded Grief & Clown and a prolific theater and event producer. Her pedagogy equips performers, comedians and clowns alike to strip away defensive armor and step forward as the most magnetic, highly engaged, and profoundly present versions of themselves on stage, using tools for instinctive, highly imaginative and engaging choices in their work.
Rooted in direct training lineages—including an exclusive apprenticeship under Christopher Bayes (Yale School of Drama) (Pandemonium Studios), Raina Von Waldenburg, Grotowski (NYU), and Stephan Wang. She has been a guest director at MIT/Harvard, directed the live staging of the Thriller video in Times Square, engineered theatrical diplomacy initiatives in West Africa and most recently created and produced the arts festival, Encounter in LA. She was a member of the Actors Center in New York and attended SUNY, AADA, and the Oxford School of Drama.
Class cancellation policy: No refunds, exchanges, or transfers.