Choreography and Acting

Blog Takeover

Our own Mariia Miasnikova, a choreography coach, movement director and contemporary ballet expert is taking over the blog to talk to us about the importance of choreography in an actor’s career.

Mariia (or Masha) is a theatre prodigy in Ukraine’s dance and physical theatre sphere. She studied in the top theatre and film university of Kyiv (capital of Ukraine) under the great Rubina. She worked in several top theatres in Kyiv, including DAH, a national theatre ensemble, and currently is an in-house choreographer of 14Orlov theatre, an innovative experimental theatre platform where she oversees each production’s dance and physical theatre pieces.

She is a strict but  director, passionate about her craft, always striving to improve herself. Despite her strict directorial style she brings a positive atmosphere to each rehearsal, an actor’s advocate in any situation. She prefers working with actors rather than professional dancers, as she believes what actors lack in dance, they compensate with being able to justify each dance move, filling it with stories of their own, and so she often works off the actors’ own innate movements, co-creating any given dance piece with them, rather than simply tasking them with a ready-made movement.

Mariia is Gamayun Theatre’s movement director and choreography coach, she is the co-author of our acting courses and worked on our 2019 production of DRAGON.

How important is choreography for an actor’s self-development?

Choreography is one of chief instruments an actor uses on stage or set. When an actor develops their body’s physical abilities, they receive an extra option to relay their character not only through voice and acting, but also through how they walk, move, the little physical habits.

Many actors don’t pay enough attention to their dance skills, as they’re not essential in their education. Dance seems quite a boring skill that is not important in the overall career. After all, they say, I’m an actor, not a dancer.

Choreography requires one to be disciplined and strict with themselves – two thing necessary to achieve great results in any career, but especially an actor’s. On our courses at Gamayun we always pay attention to the art of movement on stage, which helps an actor work on their visual representation of character. That way they train their body to speak on stage and create a rounded image for the audience.

Choreography is also a very marketable skill, which will help a director recognise you as a versatile actor, who doesn’t just operate vocally and with their face, but can exist physically, as part of a picture the director has created. By learning the basics of dance, developing your sense of rhythm you will become well-rounded, a valuable addition to the whole team.

As Stanislavski said “An actor must be able to do everything. He must be an actor, a dancer, a circus performer, costume designer and playwright”. I can give you many examples. Jacky Chan would spend days in a dance class, practicing not only martial arts but choreography as well. Mads Mikkelsen did ballet to develop his body. The most prominent Hollywood films to this day utilise tango, waltz, ballet, rock-n-roll, hip-hop, ballet and many other dance styles.

I’ve encountered actors who, unfortunately, did not pay attention to how they move, the rhythm, and don’t listen to their bodies. It’s true, sometimes a director has the luxury of time, and can spend it on additional training with actors. But that requires energy, money and time. At the end of a project the production team will ask themselves if it is truly worth to take such an actor onto the next job.

I personally recommend to work on your body every day. A simple stretching workout regularly will help, but it’s worth taking extra classes every once in a while. It will help develop you not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. And don’t be discouraged if you can’t do something at first. After all, Rome was not built in a day. Even I take classes regularly. In fact, I try to do it once a month in order to fill myself with creativity.

So be proactive. Especially nowadays, when everything is available online, and during COVID there’s nothing else to do: learn new dance moves, do yoga, learn to listen to your body!