What is movement? Ask a million different people and you will get a million different answers. For me, movement is a kind of music through the body. (And I’m not talking about ‘dance,’ in the way most people think of dance [although, dance is wonderful and worth doing whenever].) You can take almost any music term and apply it to movement: legato; staccato; pianissimo; fortissimo; rhythm; counterpoint; suspension; tension; rest/silence; and so on. All these qualities can help us to ‘hear’ the music of what we’re seeing on stage.

On stage, movement applies to both the silent and the speaking. When it comes to the aural, movement can also help us to find sound/voice, should we need to utter anything on stage. Change your body and movement while delivering the same text? Pof! We may arrive in another dimension. And even as movement may help those who speak to find a voice, let’s not forget that, when it comes to acting, text is not the final aim (that’s what books are for). The key part of the word 'acting,' after all, is ‘act,’  and often times, it's the actions that catalyze the text (as well as other actions).

“Maestro, what are concertos, sonatas, and symphonies composed of?”
“Movements.”

Let’s start finding music through our bodies.

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