Series I

Somatic Foundations & Psycho-Physical Integration for the Actor

This first series introduces students to foundational psycho-physical principles that support presence, alignment, imaginative responsiveness, and sustainable embodiment in performance. Through progressive somatic explorations, students develop increased sensitivity to movement initiation, spatial awareness, energetic direction, and the relationship between sensation and expression. The progression moves from internal awareness and developmental movement patterning toward increasingly integrated and expressive physical practice, supporting the actor’s ability to inhabit space, follow impulse, and engage the body as a responsive creative instrument.

WATCH AN EXCERPT

6 months unlimited streaming

ENROLL

IN THIS COURSE

    1. Core Principles

      FREE PREVIEW

    2. Free Preview Session

      FREE PREVIEW

    3. Session 1 — Expanding & Condensing

    4. Session 2 — Yield, Push, Reach & Pull

    5. Session 3 — Returning Home: Limb-to-Core Integration

    6. Session 4 — Inner & Outer Directions in Space

    7. Session 5 — Pelvis, Legs & Spine: An Anatomical Inquiry

    8. Session 6 — Integrative Practice I: Body, Space & Imagination

    9. Session 7 — Quality of Touch Practice I: Sponging

    10. Session 8 — Quality of Touch Practice II: Rest & Recovery

    11. Session 9 — Floor Work Practice: Extensions, Suspensions & Swings

    12. Session 10 — Integrative Practice II: Alignment in Motion

    13. Session 11 — The Poetry of Asymmetry

About this course

  • $150.00
  • 13 lessons
  • 4.5 hours of video content
  • 6-month streaming

CORE PRINCIPLES

  • Unlearning the Center – Deconstructing dominant paradigms of performance rooted in control, hierarchy, and Eurocentric embodiment.

  • The body as threshold- understanding the body as a site of emergence, transformation and relationship with the world- grounded in Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen's embodiment explorations.

  • More-than-Human Movement – Incorporating the rhythms, textures, and intelligences of the Earth, animals, ancestors, and the unknown.

  • Imagination as Portal – (Michael) Chekhovian tools to awaken the body’s ability to shape energy, emotion, and space.

  • Movement as Ritual – Using Halprin’s RSVP cycles to create deeply personal and communal journeys.

  • Awareness, Slowness and Listening – Rooted in Hatha Yoga and Inspired by Akomolafe’s invitation to “go slow,” embracing time as nonlinear and indeterminate.

  • Co-regulation and Emergence – Cultivating improvisation not as performance, but as an ethics of being with.

With

Camille Litalien

Teacher

"Somewhere between the discipline of dance, yoga and the wildness of land-based ritual, I found my language: movement as a way of remembering, of becoming, of knowing. I’ve performed both as a dancer and as an actor, with companies such as the Royal Opera Ballet and the Young Vic Theatre in London and directed award-winning works across Europe. Over time, teaching became not a departure from performing, but a deeper entrance — a way to ask: What happens to a body when it listens more than it performs? I’ve led actor’s movement programs at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (London), DePaul University (Chicago), and built a collaborative life-art practice in the high desert of New Mexico through a project called EARTHBODYPLACE — a return to slowness, to dance, to listening. Newly appointed Head of Movement at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, in New York City, I am excited to deepen dialogue with fellow artists, and collaborate on projects that care about breath, community, land, and the unsayable. My work lives at the crossing of movement and meaning, where story enters through skin, where breath listens, where presence is an act of creation. I am a movement guide, artist, and teacher walking the path of poetic inquiry."