The Unrehearsed Brilliance of Voice, Motion, and Mind

Workshops, Intensives, and Master Classes

Voice, Motion & Mind: Vocal and Physical Improvisation Workshop
Saturday, July 25—Sunday, July 26 in Minneapolis with Sten Rudstrom

As we breathe, we move. With that combination of natural events, we can find a voice: one that sings, that howls, speaks out our personal world in each and every moment. Yet, too often, we are held back; fearful of the judgment that comes with being too loud, taking up too much space. Yet our voice is what expresses us. It is what brings a greater “me” into being. It’s where we grow, engage and confront the world around us. That voice, that delicate bird song, that strike of lightening, that blasting siren, that puff of wind, is what tells our story and greets us once again when we carry that voice into language. It all starts with movement, movement connects to breath, breath connects to voice, that voice connects to words. This is where language is born, from the body, from the breath that presses its way out and calls for expression.

If you can move, and be aware of your movement while moving, then you can sense the breath that rides that movement and the voice that wants to come out. This workshop is all about that moment: noticing, experiencing and responding to the rise and fall of lungs and the partnered song.

Action Theater™ is a physical theater improvisation training which expands individual expressive range, builds ensemble awareness, and offers performers a clear, structured form in which to play with abandon. By integrating the kinesthetic intelligence of dance with the emotive nature of acting, Action Theater™ helps students access imaginative impulses. The training builds vocal, verbal, and physical performance skills, hones awareness and increases expressive range.

Sten Rudstrom loves to improvise and enter into the unknown in studios and theaters as often as he can. Self-surprise is one of his goals. A Senior Certified Teacher of Action Theater™, the radical body-based improvisation practice devised by Ruth Zaporah, Rudstrom is a life-long advocate of improvisation and a lineage holder of her teachings. Heavily influenced by Buddhist philosophy and neuroscience research, he constantly articulates the process of improvisation in new and exciting ways: How the brain creates the mind, how personality and ego identify with the thought process, how habitual behaviours solidify unconsciously, how to not take things so seriously and how to seriously play with those things are of his greatest interest. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetics; MFA Live Art/Performance; Jury Award Winner 2022 Solo/Duo Festival, Barnes Crossing/Köln; and supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste, and Dis-Tanzen Solo. Currently based in Berlin, Germany, he teaches and performs internationally and his workshops are exciting, inspiring and challenging.