Master Class Series
Since 1999, the Actors' Training Project of Oakland, CA, has sponsored a broad series of master classes and visits with dynamic artists who are working around the country and abroad. All of these extraordinary visitors are interested in the integration of acting, voice and movement skills that is the particular work of the Actors' Training Project; they also have a wide range of other profession-related interests and areas of expertise. Informal videotapes of all of the sessions are archived for student viewing. The Master Class Series has engendered exciting performances, collaborations and projects, both trans-national and trans-continental.

Andre Bernard: Teacher of Ideokinesis, Creative Body Alignment
H.S. Shivaprakash, Ph.D.: Poet and Playwright
Kunsu Shim, Gerhard Stäbler: Composers
John McConville, M.Div.: Dancer, Choregrapher, Teacher, Director
Anna Hadzi: Actress and Producer
Michele Cuomo, MFA: Director, Actress, Dancer, Teacher
Nathan Thomas, Ph.D.: Actor, Director, Composer, Teacher, Scholar
Bill Smith, MFA: Teacher, Director, Filmmaker, Writer, Actor

June 2001
ANDRE BERNARD: TEACHER, IDEOKINESIS
Cancelled, re-scheduled for 2001

In the 1920's, an outstanding and unorthodox approach to freeing the human body of muscular stresses to achieve balanced alignment and ease of motion was developed by Mabel Elsworth Todd. Today this approach remains unique in its reliance on the creative mind to re-educate neuro-muscular patterns of body balance and motion. The process, both scientific and aesthetic, engages the student's mind through tactile, visual and auditory senses, turning concept into image and image into new muscular patterns.

Students return to this workshop year after year to renew and deepen concepts, while new students receive basic training which may be put to use immediately in daily living, dance, athletics, performance, teaching and healing.

Andre Bernard, the foremost teacher of the Todd work, studied for ten years with Barbara Clark, one of Todd's most gifted students, following an educational background in engineering and mathematics and a professional career in acting and dancing. He has taught body alignment as a member of the New York University faculty since 1966.