The actor is an 'athlete of emotions, ' says Antonin Artaud, and though actors are an extreme case, now, thanks to Alba Emoting, the capacity to regulate our emotions in a simple physical way, without mental intervention, is possible for everyone. Alba Emoting: A Scientific Method for Emotional Induction offers us the means to reexamine six basic emotions that are universal: joy, sadness, anger, fear, erotic, and tenderness; to recognize them accurately, without confusions, and to express them genuinely, just as children do. Mastering the triad of "breath + posture + facial expression," one can Step-Out from a feeling of anger, attain neutrality, or even better, enter into a tender mood; one can transform sadness or paralyzing fear into mobilizing joy. From such an encounter with the essential, we can observe and better understand the complex mixed emotions that we normally feel, realize the anxieties, the neuroses, the depressions, and also the wonderful sublime emotions, such as that of spirituality. "One can lie through the mouth; the accompanying gesture, however, tells the truth," says Nietzsche. Alba Emoting is a system that allows people to get into physical contact with their neurologically basic emotions, by using precise breathing patterns, postural attitudes, and facial expressions that go beyond words.

You are an emotional body. You were born with a body primed and ready to express your needs through emotions, and they influence all you feel, think, do, and say. Everything you encounter triggers your emotions, and then influences your health, relationships, perspective and perception of the world. By learning more about emotions and developing skills to sense how they emerge and express through your body, you can become more adept at self-regulating emotions, managing how you express them, and consciously shifting from undesirable emotional states to more desirable ones. The lessons in this book, previously available only through specialized courses and workshops, provide detailed information on a remarkable physical approach to emotion regulation. The Emotional Body uses physical patterns discovered in scientific research, and an instructional style informed by extensive research, somatic education theory, and more than ten years of development.

Performer Training is an examination of how actors are trained in different cultures. Beginning with studies of mainstream training in countries such as Poland, Australia, Germany, and the United States, subsequent studies survey: · Some of Asia's traditional training methods and recent experiments in performer training · Eugenio Barba's training methods · Jerzy Grotowski's most recent investigations · The Japanese American NOHO companies attempts at integrating Kyogen into the works of Samuel Beckett · Descriptions of the training methods developed by Tadashi Suzuki and Anne Bogart at their Saratoga International Theatre Institute · Recent efforts to re-examine the role and scope of training, like Britain's International Workshop Festival and the European League of Institutes of Arts masterclasses · The reformulation of the use of emotions in performer training known as Alba Emoting.

Rhonda Blair examines the physiological relationship between bodily action and emotional experience, in the first full-length study of actor training using the insights of cognitive neuroscience and their crucial importance to an actor’s engagement with a role.

In order to bring a character to life, it is beneficial for animators to have a solid understanding of acting principles, and this book examines the important skills behind the artistry of creating animated characters. With a particular emphasis on a character’s motions and movement, this unique resource covers the basic elements of acting for CG animation and then progresses to more advanced topics such as internal intent and motivation. Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Breath is the flow of air between life and death. Breathing is an involuntary action that functions as the basis of all human activities, intellectual, artistic, emotional and physical. Breathing is the first autonomous individual action that brings life into being and the end of breathing is the definitive sign of disappearance. Starting from the question how breathing affects the body, levels of consciousness, perception and meaning, this book, for the first time, investigates through a variety of philosophical, critical and practical models, directly and indirectly related to breath, aiming to establish breath as a category in the production and reception of meaning within the context of theatre. It also explores the epistemological, psycho-physical and consciousness-related implications of breath. Aristotle dedicated a volume to breath exploring and enquiring in to its presocratic roots. For Heidegger, breath is "the temporal extension" of Being. Artaud's theatricality is not representational but rather rooted in the actor's breathing. Jacques Derrida and Luce Irigaray investigate the phenomenon of breath in order to explain the nature of human consciousness. Breath as a philosophical concept and as a system of practice is central to Indian thoughts, performance, medicine, martial arts and spirituality. As the book argues, individual consciousness is a temporal experience and breath is the material presence of time in the body. Cessation of breath, on the contrary, creates pause in this flow of the endless identification of signifiers. When breath stops time stops. When time stops there is a 'gap' in the chain of the presence of signifiers and this 'gap' is a different perceptual modality, which is neutral in Zero velocity. Restoration of Breath is a practical approach to this psychophysical experience of consciousness in which time exists only in eternity and void beyond memory and meaning.

Sociopragmatics is a rapidly growing field and this is the first ever handbook dedicated to this exciting area of study. Bringing together an international team of leading editors and contributors, it provides a comprehensive, cutting-edge overview of the key concepts, topics, settings and methodologies involved in sociopragmatic research. The chapters are organised in a systematic fashion, and span a wide range of theoretical research on how language communicates multiple meanings in context, how it influences our daily interactions and relationships with others, and how it helps construct our social worlds. Providing insight into a fascinating array of phenomena and novel research directions, the Handbook is not only relevant to experts of pragmatics but to any reader with an interest in language and its use in different contexts, including researchers in sociology, anthropology and communication, and students of applied linguistics and related areas, as well as professional practitioners in communication research.