“It was 1999 when I met Action Theater via Sten Rudstrom, at Moving on Center, a school for participatory arts and movement therapy. We were studying different improvisation and somatic techniques every week, and sometimes for me, just coming out of being a scientist my entire life, the point of some of the weeks was a little unclear. Action Theater and Sten where always holding me with clarity. I felt what I/we were doing, playing with the unknown. I knew we were looking at ourselves in action to discover our habitual patterns and be more available to presence. The experience touched me in such a profound way that almost 20 years later this are the questions I still hold personally and professionally. What is my blindspot? How can I see it looking at my actions? How can I be more present?”
— Performance Tactics and weekend workshops participant
“Die Workshops und besonders die zwei Wochen in Berlin, im Erleben Deiner Arbeit haben meine Haltung verändert. Ich habe mich dem Mut gegenüber gestellt. Wahrnehmen, Fühlen und Handeln sind differenzierter geworden. Dadurch entwickelt sich eine neue Qualität, die mich inspiriert. Besonders in der Arbeit mit Kindern wird es wirksam. Die Freude am Leben, die Kinder ausdrücken, auch wenn es den Rahmen scheinbar sprengt, habe ich gelernt wieder zu erinnern.Die unterschiedlichen Ebenen, die Gleichzeitigkeit der Ebenen sind alle da, dafür habe ich eine feinere Wahrnemung bekommen. Egal wie verknotet es scheint, es gibt Möglichkeiten, im Innehalten Lösung zu finden. Danke.
— Februar Training Teilnehmerin ( see English below)
The experience of your work — in workshops and especially the two weeks in Berlin — have changed my attitude [about life]. The work gave the courage to face it. [My] Perception, feeling and acting have become more differentiated. This creates a new quality in me that is inspiring. It is especially effective when working with children. I’ve learned to remember the joy of living that children express, even though if it seems to go beyond the frame. The different levels [of life], the simultaneity of the levels are all there, but I’ve gotten a finer perception. No matter how tangled it seems, there are ways to find a solution. Thank you.
— February Training participant
“I’m writing to thank you for a stimulating and liberating workshop. I could list the many aspects which are reverberating around in me, but I think the one which says most is the fact that I am still writing and adding to the notes I made during the three days. The workshop opened me up to lots of ideas and possibilities of relating to and structuring the challenge of solo improvisation.
I’ve been involved for over thirty years with body, breath, movement, performance and improvisation in various forms. As time goes by it gets harder to find people from whom I can learn – simply because of what I’ve learned along the way: It builds up. So it’s great to be on that threshold again to which the workshop took me. Your tasks challenged me and your words supported and stimulated my own creative processes.
I hope we can meet again soon in that Empty Space to explore the delights and terrors of The Material.”
— Alone, Allein, Alien — Solo Performance participant
Action Theater definitely affected me and my practice. What I remember is feeling very challenged to face the silence and blank page of a moment without panicking. Learning to work with that emptiness is something that has guided me in my improvisational practice, which is always in process even twenty years later. I’m grateful to the moments that I spent in the training and especially for how much they challenged me.
— August Training participant
If Buster Keaton, Michael Asher, and Samuel Beckett started a dance practice, it could not be more informative or generous than the depth, variety, and style of Sten Rudstrom’s. Not to be missed if one values the inner values of eye contact and movement as stretching and binding dance and improvisational dynamics.
— Be Here Now! participant
“I discovered my voice in ‘every day performance’ and I challenged myself doing things I would never imagine, after putting aside my pride and ‘the way I want to be looked at’, or the way I have learned I should look.”
“I appreciated the fact that you do not emphasize impressive things and instead work with little elements. You work on the ‘real’ feelings, so people perform themselves and do not ‘act’ but they ‘re-act’ to the others and to the environment.”
“The workshop changed many things in my thinking, the way I think about art, performance, what kind of exploration I want to do and what kind of visual artist I would like to be.”
“The exercises were for me very interesting to try and to fight with myself and my patterns and my ‘persona’ in general.”
“You gave a lot of new impulses to me, not only for improv, but also for my life.”
“This way of working with awareness and freedom is what I am interested in, practicing, teaching and using in the future. Its full of deepness and inside exploration. . . .
“Thanks for providing a great space to stretch, stumble, fall and fly. It’s quite simple and extremely powerful.”
“Action Theater practice deals with ones’ core and brings one constantly back to examine ones’ own existence.”
“Nochmals VIELEN DANK! Das Workshop war wirklich erste Klasse!
“This is the basis! This is the work we should all be starting from!”
| “Thank you for the class, I learned and noticed a lot, my improv work has been mostly in movement, for fun and goofing around with a development intention and improv for democracy/citizen participation skills. In that, the focus has been on responding to others, building with what others offer, obviously. So the focus of these few sessions on my ‘instrument,’ namely me, has been very interesting. I have rarely focused on [this] way to respond, the response coming from whatever is happening with me, and that informs how I respond to others. Of course it does, feels obvious to even say it, but it has never been my focus. These sessions helped open my eyes to that, thank you.” |
“What I learned was
1. Allowing the moment to happen in ensemble: when to go on and when to come off.
2. Stay with the collective impro and when/if a stuck moment occurs, then it’s time to create a catastrophe.
3.Trust yourself — solo and ensemble —to find an ending in the occurrence
4. In a solo performance —if /when your work seems mediocre to you — make it more mediocre!”
— August/Ensemble Training Participant
“In general, how I encountered Action Theater™ occurs to me as a practice of meditation in action as I was challenged to stay openly present in a constant process of noticing.
Seemingly simple tasks kept me busy on so many levels simultaneously. Bodily sensations, emotions and the phenomena of feelings and sense-making battling for my attention as the judgmental voice in my head labeled them. But no matter the mental chatter I realized that there’s a richness of expression through fully saturating myself with what is. By saying yes. And by working with it and through it.
Thank you for creating an amenable space for exploration, your genuine guidance and these words that still resonate within me. Looking forward to practicing more of that!”
— Be Here Now! participant
I hope this letter finds you well! I wanted to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude for the wonderful Action Theater workshop in Estonia a few weeks ago. Your dedication, expertise, and passion for the practice truly shone through, and I’m incredibly grateful to have gotten the opportunity to learn from your approach. A lot was able to “click” for me in utilizing text and movement in improvisation during your workshop week, and I really look forward to putting the tools you gave us to use in my own practice.
— Advanced Action Theater participant