The Michael Chekhov Technique, rooted in Stanislavsky, influenced by Meyerhold and Vakhtangov

Chekhov's technique is a completely imaginative approach to experiencing the truth of the moment.
According to Chekhov, the work of the actor is to create an inner event which is an actual experience
occurring in real time within the actor. This inner event as it is being experienced by the actor is
witnessed by the audience as an outward expression related to the contextual moment of the play.
This event and the ability to create it belong to what Michael Chekhov calls the Creative
Individuality of the actor, and is not directly tied to his personality. This Creative Individuality allows
the artist actor to use parts of himself that are not just the smaller meaner more banal elements that
make up his daily life, but rather parts of his unconscious, where dwell more universal and
archetypal images.
"All you experience in the course of your life, all you observe and think, all that makes you happy or
unhappy, all your regrets or satisfactions, all your love or hate, all you long for or avoid, all your
achievements and failures, all you brought with you into this life at birth -your temperament, abilities,
inclinations etc., all are part of the region of your so called subconscious depths. There being
forgotten by you, or never known to you they undergo the process of being purified of all egotism.
They become feelings per se. Thus purged and transformed, they become part of the material from
which your Individuality creates the psychology, the illusory "soul" of the character."
(To The Actor by Michael Chekhov
n this way the ego of the character is not subjected to the ego of the actor, because the Individuality
seeks a creative union with the character, and will not allow the smaller personality to invade the
character thereby distorting this character into one more representation of the actor's personality.

http://www.michaelchekhovactingstudio.com/technique.htm

Michael(Mikhail)AleksandrovichChekhov(1891,St.Petersburg1955,Los
Angeles)
Chekhov the actor embodied the complete synthesis of inner feeling
and outer form, which the American director Robert Lewis called
"total acting"
Anthroposophy became his private religion, eurythmy gave new
impulses on how to refine non-verbal acting and develop the
harmony of the actor's body. Chekhov believed that the actor should
develop not only physically, but spiritually as well, acquiring an
inner life, rich with images from which he would be able to draw
when creating a character. His system evolved into an alternative of
Stanislavsky's, emphasizing more universal, spiritual resources of
acting, rather than the historical, emotional and psychological
details of the actor's life.
Chekhov conducted laboratory work, exploring paths to creativity. In
his opinion, an actor's training consists of schooling his body until it

becomes a sensitive instrument to express ideas and emotions.

Chekhov aimed at creating feeling of truth and arousing actor's
fantasy by means of improvisation and atmosphere. He used
exercises based on Yoga: techniques of observation, concentration
and communication. Chekhov applied ways of arousing "life energy"
of the actor. He used also exercises of communication, in which
actors send and receive energy rays, not words. He adapted
meditation techniques such as visualization, meaning that the actor
creates a "filmstrip" of mental images from the character's life.
Chekhov warned that all devices must be imbued with inner content
and meaning; they should not become mere technical exercises.
Chekhov believed that actors must have some knowledge of scene
designing, costume making, production, music, and even writing. His
ambition was to form a group in which every member was an expert
in the theatre.
His next film gained him the most recognition. It was Alfred
Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) with Ingrid Bergman and Gregory
Peck. For his part as professor Brulov Chekhov received an Academy
Award nomination for best supporting actor. One critic wrote that the
film was "coldly factual... until Chekhov brought it the warmth of his
personality and the charm of his characterization".
Numerous film actors went to the old Russian actor for help with
their specific roles and for their general acting development. They
included: John Barrymore, Jr., Ingrid Bergman, Joan
Caulfield, James Dean, John Dehner, Eddie Grove, Jennifer
Jones, Jack Klugman, Sam Levine, Marilyn Monroe, Jack
Palance, Gregory Peck, and Anthony Quinn
"The highest point of our art is reached when we are burning inside
and command complete outer ease at the same time."
http://www.helsinki.fi/lehdet/uh/101g.htm

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.chekhov.net/articles_secure.html
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One is impressed above all by Chekhovs powerful sense of shape and
form; he wanted to free the

actors imagination from the slavery of imitative naturalism, but only so

the actor could better serve
the material with his own individual artistry. This isnt let-it-all hang out
but a disciplined, refined
aesthetic system
http://www.chekhov.net/pdf/Backstage%20Review%20of%20To%20The
%20Actor.pdf
The fundamental concept of the Three Sisters Sensations of Balancing,
Falling and Floating describes the
relationship of an objects stability due to gravity. Gravity is the law of
physics that affects the human being
most powerfully and continuously. We are speaking about the nature of
equilibrium, the search for stability. In
the three-dimensional world, any object can be identified either as Falling,
Floating, or Balancing. This includes
our bodies, our breath, and our eyes. Likewise, intangible energies such
as our thoughts, feelings, desires, spirit,
centers and personal atmospheres have their own degree of stability and
can be described with these three
sensations. Our basic breathing pattern as well as our walk can be
described as a sequence of balancing, floating
and falling.
By mastering the potential to freely move with these three sensations, we
can then allow images of them to
inspire us in several different applications that are effective in any style,
medium or genre of performance.
Falling
One could say that if the energy is yielding to a gravitational pull in a
specific direction, there is a sensation of
falling. Usually this fall is in a downward direction. To experience this,
simply raise one arm up, and release all
tension. The arm will fall down. The breath falls in an exhale from the
lungs.
Fall to pieces
Fall for that old trick
Fall asleep, fall into bed
In the military, fall in and out of line.
Fall in love
Fall out of favor

Fall on your face

Fall into a trap
Fall in your lap
Fall within the limits

 Fall behind or below

Fall into ruin
If Falling is sinking into the pull of gravity, Floating is a sense of freedom
from gravitational pull and is
directionless. The breath of floating is the inhale.
Within the 3 Sister Sensations of Gravitational Stability, Floating refers to
the sensation of weightlessness,
suspension, detachment, levity or neutral buoyancy.
Move your hands as if you are weightlessly floating in space. What does it
awaken within you? Float forward.
Float upward.
To move, breathe, and speak with a sensation of Floating Weightlessly
may awaken feelings of being spacey,
airy, lost, shocked, awed, stunned, disconnected, nave, hopeless,
loftiness. Stupidity, incapacity, retardation,
dysfunction, elevation or superiority may be perceived. Paralysis,
Inflation, expansion, rising, ascending,
meditating are all aspects that can be explored with this sensation of
weightless floating. Here are some idioms:
Get a rise out of you
The rising generation
Drifting in sorrow
Floating in a sea of grief

Head in the clouds

Spaced out
Airhead
Empty-headed
Balancing (the active attempt to become balanced) is the urge to attain or
sustain equilibrium of opposing
forces. The energy is willfully engaged in the struggle against gravity and
levity- to not fall, to not float.
Yielding to gravity is encompassed by the term Falling. Trying to stop or
break the fall is encompassed by the
term Balancing. The state is imbalance, unbalance, and instability. One
tries not to topple or drift. The breath of
balancing is held. It is a very highly charged state of energy that, like a
tightrope walker, is most riveting in a
chaotic struggle for control. It provides strong contrast to floating
weightlessly and falling yieldingly.

For our artistic purposes it is important to distinguish between balanced

and balancing. Balanced (to be in a state
of balance) suggests that the forces on either side of the center of gravity
are equal, producing stability. This
condition is one to be desired as a human being since it suggests a lack of
tension. In the Chekhov Technique
we describe this condition as a Feeling of Ease. It is conflict-free. However,
the nature of storytelling is centered
on Conflict. As such, only in brief moments would Balanced be the ideal
choice of sensation without losing the
interest of our audience. Balancing as an active process will be infinitely
more useful to the actor.
Common responses to this include: Terror, Anticipation, Excitement,
Eagerness, Worry, Aggravation, Panic,
Apprehension, Contraction, Chaos, Disorientation, Hyperactive, and
Repression. A Few idioms are:
Hanging in the Balance
On the Edge
On pins and needles
Strike a balance
The scales are still in motion
Balance of Power
Balancing out
These are three major applications I recommend: for
Emotional truth, Characterization and Transitional Gestures.
These 3 Sister Sensations can be a defining Character trait in the same
way that Thinking, Feeling, Willing and
personal atmospheres can be predominant traits.
Perhaps Lady Macbeth is a Balancer and Ophelia is a floater. May be
Hamlet is a balancer one day and a floater
the next, and then a faller.
Archetype
http://www.chekhov.net/pdf/Chekhov's%20Final%20Gift%20-%20The
%203%20Sisters.pdf
Psychological Gesture is used today by many great actors such
as Jack Nicholson, Anthony Hopkins and Johnny Depp
What is the Psychological Gesture?
If we define gesture to mean a movement that has intention, we could say
that the Psychological Gesture is a movement that expresses

the psychology of the character. Chekhov defines the psychology to

consist of the thoughts, feelings and will of a human being.
Hence, the PG is a physical expression of the thoughts, feelings and
desires of the character, incorporated into one movement. You can
liken it to a moving logo, like the Nike logo, which captures the essence of
Nike in one image.
So, in one movement, the PG awakens the essence of the character in you
thus aligning your thoughts, feelings and will (objective)
with that of the character. When this happens, your walk, your expressive
mannerisms, your voice and line delivery are all inspired by
one moving image. You perform the gesture prior to your scene to trigger
your artistic nature. While in the scene, if your inspiration
weakens, you simply envision the gesture in your imagination as you are
acting and it will revitalize you.
Leading Questions, in which you cultivate your imagination by asking
questions. Your
imagination will respond instantly and your body will begin to express the
movement in small ways before you can even verbalize
your answers.
For example: if you are playing a villain, you might begin by asking what it
is your character desires. Power? Okay, how do you go
about getting power? By dominating? Okay, what is a physical movement
that dominates? Pressing down.
Now, your first practice with PG: Start with your hands as high as possible
and press them down against an imaginary resistance.
Picture the characters opponents as you press down to the floor. Add to
the press a quality: rage, frustration, sinister, conniving, fear,
etc. Try different qualities until you feel the quality and desire to dominate
in every cell of your being. If you need further help:PART 2
In Part One on Michael Chekhovs Psychological gesture, we discussed
who, what, why and how. Now we go deeper into the
how to create a more effective PG. Try your villainous PG as developed
at the end of article one. Is it stimulating you artistically?
Some times you can shorten the Leading Questions sequence by
visualizing the character and asking it to show you it's PG. This
requires well-developed concentration skills.
Visualize a beam of energy (light) going up from your core through the top
of your head straight into outer space. Now, visualize
beaming the character down as in Star Trek. Imagine the details as the
character materializes from the feet to the head. Now, imagine it
shows you the PG.
Imitate what you see as closely as possible. Observe how the movement
impacts you.

You can have an Overall PG that will help you perform any given moment
in the story and you can have different PG's for different
sections, moments or beats in the story. Every objective you identify can
be gesturized. This transforms your intellectual knowledge of
your objective into your body and voice: the only parts of the actor that
the audience actually experiences. You know you have found
your Overall PG when it stimulates you for every moment regardless of
the scene you are creating.
http://www.chekhov.net/pdf/Psychological%20Gesture%20%20Hollywoods%20Best%20Kept%20Acting%20Secret.pdf
Lisa Dalton: She further clarified the difference between Chekhov and
Meisner: Meisner gets you under the mask (the everyday face we
present to
the world) to respond as you. Chekhov says all our characters have (their
own) masks, and we climb inside our character and find out
how he feels, but the art is in finding the mask of that character.
http://www.chekhov.net/pdf/The%20Other%20Chekhov%20%20Backstage%20West%20Review.pdf
Central to his method is an image of the the Ideal Actor who, as a human being, is himself a
two-fold instrument. As an embodied being, he has corporeality: I have a body. As a
conscious being with thoughts, feelings, and will impulses, he has an inner self (psyche/soul):
I have an inner life. In Chekhovs vocabulary, the term psycho-physical is shorthand to
indicate the actors whole instrument, which by its essential parts is both physical and
psychological. Understandably then, the first goal of the method is for the two component
parts of the actors whole to develop together in the direction of their highest potential.

http://michaelchekhovactorsstudioboston.com/About_Chekhov_Method.ht
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http://actingtruthfully.jimdo.com/chekhov-technique/
http://www.acting-school-stop.com/michael-chekhov.html
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http://www.8pic.ir/images/dufnamrmx3rd4s00wz7v.pdf