Performing Life

Workshops for Artistic

&

Personal Growth

Enhance your performance skills with a workshop or a private session that helps you unleash your performance power by using who you are!

Michael Ellison, Ph.D., teaches a wide array of workshops designed to help people release tension, utilize their bodies and voices more efficiently, and communicate more effectively.

Acting for Dancers

Dancers tend to be technically trained. The assumption is that expressiveness will then come through on its own Rarely is attention given to help the dancer “make the movement her own. This workshop helps dancers to explore the range of individual expression within the parameters of the choreography. A variety of tools will be examined, including ways of

  • Texturing movement
  • Imbuing a movement phrase with Emotion, Focus and Intention.
    Set free your own personal expressiveness in ways which truly serve the choreography and the audience

Workshops can be adjusted in size and scope to fill the needs of your organization. Talk to me about your needs and we will design a workshop program to suit them. I am also available for private coachings in movement, acting and song interpretation.

Cost is negotiable based on the number of hours and the number of days worked. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

…more about Michael Ellison, Ph.D.

Michael Ellison is a guide and integrator with a Ph.D. in Theatre from The University of Minnesota. There he studied under Wesley Balk and interviewed 147 working Actor/Singer/Dancers for his dissertation “Challenges of the Triple Threat.” He brings that wealth of perspectives to his work as well as drawing from the work of Stanislavski, Anne Bogart, Alexander technique, Rudolf Laban’s Effort/Shape, and Bartenieff’s Fundamentals.
Michael has coached, taught, performed and shared his transformational body/energy work across the United States, in Canada, the UK, Denmark, Germany and the Philippines (where he served as acting coach and choreographer for the world premiere of “The Music of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg in Concert,” featuring Lea Salonga). In addition, he has served as an adjudicator for The Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival in Regions 2, 3 and 4 offering feedback and coaching MTI finalists.

Contact Information:
Michael Ellison, Ph.D.
Associate Professor Emeritus
Department of Theatre and Film
Bowling Green State University
Phone 419.351.3957
Email mbelight13@gmail.com

Performing Presence:
Unleashing Your Charisma

Whether you act, sing, dance, or are part of the corporate workforce having a powerful presence increases your effectiveness- onstage or off. Through practical exercises of grounding, centering, focusing, and filling space learn skills that enhance your ability to “be in the moment” in a full potent way. Come and explore in a playful and supportive environment, your ability to claim your own personal power.

Movement Workshops

Working WITH Your Body In our health and appearance-conscious, aerobicized society we are encouraged to deal with our bodies as well-oiled machines. Rarely are we encouraged to work WITH our bodies – to honor their needs and respect what we can learn from them. We will explore a myriad of resources for enhancing physical awareness and optimizing physical energy. Specific exercises concerning issues such as:

  • Relaxation
  • Breathing
  • Posture
  • Connecting movements
    will open a rich range of physical possibilities to enhance your personal performance both onstage and in daily life.

Building a Movement Vocabulary

Often singers and actors wonder, “What do I do with my body?” The emphasis here is on opening an array of possibilities for physical expression. Nonjudgmental vocabularies will be explored including:

  • Laban Effort-Shape
  • Centering as a tool for both focusing energy and texturing movement
  • The Elements of a Walk

Movement for Singers

Even performers with movement backgrounds are often at a loss as to how to use their bodies while singing. This workshop will help you explore:

  • Stage Presence: Taking the stage, filling the space and relating to your environment
  • Meaning what you move: Bringing intention and emotional expression to your movement
  • Gestures: Expanding your gesture vocabulary Learn to be more relaxed in your body while singing so your expressiveness shines through.

Movement for Actors

Tools from a myriad of acting and movement disciplines – from Stanislavski, Cohen and Boal to Alexander, Feldenkrais and Laban will be utilized to assist performers in building powerful characterizations through making strong, clear, specific physical choices.

Acting Workshops

Characterization for Singers

In this course we will explore building a character from three different thresholds

  • Vocal • Physical • Emotional
    The emphasis is on finding choices which work optimally for both the performer AND the character, acknowledging that the character is brought to life only through the voice, body, and emotional expressiveness of the performer.

Acting a Song

Many singers and dancers, while taught to sing or sell a song, are rarely assisted in claiming a song as their own. Even experienced actors can be stymied as to how to utilize their training in the context of a song.
This workshop is designed to help you take a song and

  • Use who you are vs. “acting”
  • Make choices which lead you to maximize emotional and physical involvement Make choices which support the text and clarify the character
  • Utilize the power of your imagination