Michael Chekhov International ConferenceWorkshops – Lectures – Speeches – Research

(„Goblet“ from M:Chekhov’s „Paris Manuscript“ and „Kaunas-Lessons“)

Lisa Dalton and Wil Kilroy will share a pathway to experiencing the self as the Goblet, in processes for crossing the threshold, centering in the ideal, receiving images, crafting personal Psychological gestures and ensemble harmonious groupings using Japanese Rock Garden Form and archetypal forces of Good and Evil (Virtues and Vices-Lucifer/Ahriman).

Lisa Dalton and Wil Kilroy build upon the Goblet as a Creative Process and step the ensemble through applications based on Chapter 8 of To The Actor, To the Director, Acting the MIchael Chekhov Way and their upcoming book, SynthAnalysis, founded in the multidimensional process of identifying the Spirit/Thinking of the story expressed in Psychological Gesture, the Score of Atmospheres as the Soul/Feeling, and the through line of good and evil events/the Will, expressed in a flow of Harmonious Groupings. (Joerg, if there were a common text to use for the Conference like Inspector General, we would use that.)

As an actor you can only really inspire your audience in the truest sense of the word if you open and keep up access to the spiritual sources during the play. The workshop will use specific exercises to present a possible approach to these sources through the spiritual breath in its various phases. Topics will be: The beat out of nothing, the sweet point, dealing with fear and courage as a creative tool, the movement of the inner and outer being, rhythm, dynamics and PG and the observation of the resonance

Around 60 min. with following exchange

There are not many places in the world where you can discover 200 years of world history within a 150 meter long walk. We take a short trip to the River Spree and see the relicts of great world power fantasies and their destructive but also peaceful transformation - the army bakery, the destroyed bridge in the Spree, the East Side Gallery - formerly called the antifascist protection wall and now, the New Economy.

My idea here is that as we are facing the ever increasing materialization of storytelling, we are also presented with the beautiful growth of the MC work globally. However, it is mostly centered in teaching a series of tools to actors. Chekhov very specifically declined moving his own acting career forward (in Europe especially) because he only wanted to work in ensemble. He believed every actor need to be able to write, design, direct and produce the stories being told. With an ensemble of artists who understand all of these creative processes, the entire technique can be fully developed. The Feeling of the Whole will be greatest when the whole creative team employs the higher sensibilities Chekhov invites us to embrace. Is this a worthy pursuit towards the theatre of the future? How can we create more training/opportunities etc. for building multi-skilled ensembles?

Free movement for acting, contemporary dance, and ensemble improvisation.
Through body awareness, a conscious relationship to space, and connection to the soul, we explore our presence in space and discover the meaning of movement. New and unexpected movements will emerge, guiding you into a deep experience of connection.

(Similarities, contrasts, and enrichments of speech and acting)
On the threshold of the loss of reality through virtual technological media, we encounter creative speech and Michael Chekhov's acting method as innovative, reality-creating artistic training paths. Both  are based on the understanding of humans as sensory and supersensory being and aim at the development of perceptual organs for imaginative, inspirational, and intuitive processes. This lecture and workshop are dedicated to a differentiated methodological comparison of these two mutually interpenetrating arts.

"Human beings are present and alive in their gestures. These gestures disappear into their speaking." 
Rudolf Steiner (Lecture 2, The Speech and Drama Course) 

This workshop will explore the interface between Chekhov's archetypal and psychological gestures and Rudolf Steiner's revelations of speech as set out in the course of speech and drama lectures. How can they each work for actors in the creating of a role? 

"Words move, music moves, 
Only in time but that which is only living 
Can only die. 
Words, after speech, reach 
Into the silence. 
Only by the form, the pattern, 
Can words or music reach 
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still 
Moves perpetually in its stillness." 

T. S. Eliot (from Burnt Norton, Four Quartets) 

The basics in Chekhov’s acting technique and their relationship to the basic elements of Steiner’s Creative Speech/Speech Formation will be the main themes of this workshop. How do we need to engage as artists that allows the body and then words to move? How is what Chekhov developed as a particular understanding of an actor’s movement connected to the movement of words and speech? 

The workshop explores the differences between live performance, film, and AI-generated performance, engaging participants in a hands-on exploration of the latest creative possibilities and limitations of AI in music, writing, animation, film, photography, visual and performing arts. Designed as a collaborative experiment, the workshop investigates how the Michael Chekhov technique can create a fundamental difference in the audience's perception of AI-generated performances compared to digitally filmed performances by live actors. The workshop is led by film director and screenwriter Sofia Geweiler.

When Chekhov found Anthroposophy to be an inspiration for his work as an actor, he crystallised many elements of Eurythmy and Steiner’s Speech and Drama course into his methodologies. These elements can be tapped into as vital, healing processes for our inner and outer work as actors, directors, therapists or teachers; they can become powerful tools in our quest as evolving human beings.

In this workshop, we’ll explore the world of Psychological Gesture through the lens of Steiner’s classical Soul Gestures and his indications for embodying atmospheres and colors. We’ll also explore themes of cultivating the actor’s instrument as a sentient and sensitive membrane, as a body of expressive possibilities. Further, we’ll look at the energetic ‘afterglow’ of the work, to develop ways of balancing our energies in taking up characters and also letting them go, or “de-roling”, through using potentization, involution, assimilation, and other processes found in Eurythmy Therapy.

Eurythmist, Musician, Director, Festival and Cultural Co-Creatrix

Eurythmy studies in Hamburg and Spring Valley. Diane encountered the Chekhov work as a young Eurythmist in NYC in the 80’s, working closely with Ted Pugh and Fern Sloan in the early days of the Actors’ Ensemble - a fruitful era of exploration and cross-pollination.

She left New York “just for a short sabbatical” to join the Stuttgart Eurythmeum’s Stage Group, touring internationally in Finland, Russia and throughout Europe. She took up residence in Australia a few years after the Australia-New Zealand-US Tour. Therapeutic Eurythmy Training in Stuttgart and work in Curative Education in Hamburg. Pioneered the creation of Eurythmy-inspired class plays with original music. Composed songs for Music for Little People in California; Award-winning children’s music producer with The Magic Garden album. Active on the Teacher Training circuit in Australia, China and Taiwan. Long-standing colleagueship with Dawn Langman at the School of the Living Word; assisted Dawn with background for her two most recent books, “The Actor of the Future, Vols. 2 & 3", which use Eurythmy gestures for the planets and zodiac as Psychological Gestures for character work. Currently a member of Heart Fire, “midwifing” the Chekhov & Speech and Drama work in Australia. Poetic author of the book Brigid of Iona, based on a Celtic Nativity legend, performed as a musical with theatre groups and communities, and designed to wrestle Christmas from the clutches of Commercialism. Enthusiastic collaborations warmly invited!

Was ist dein Theater?

Diese Frage steht im Zentrum von Anton Čechovs Stück DIE MÖWE. Jede der Figuren hat eine eigene Haltung zur Kunst. Worum geht es genau und wie wird die Frage entschieden? Um dies herauszufinden erkläre ich die Handlungsanalyse. Im Regiestudiengang am Moskauer GITIS wird mit Begriffen des späten Stanislavskij und in der Nachfolge von Marija Knebel (und Michail Čechov!) gearbeitet. Was hat es mit dem rätselhaften Stück (Ninas Monolog) über die Weltseele von Kostja auf sich? Ist es lächerlich, dilettantisch, banal – oder nicht? Und wie kann man es spielen?
 

What is your theater?

This question is at the heart of Anton Čechov's play THE SEAGULL. Each of its characters has their own attitude to art. What exactly is it about and how is the question decided? To find this out, I explain a special “active analysis”. In the directing studies at the Moscow GITIS, we work with concepts of the late Stanislavsky and in the succession of Marija Knebel (and Mikhail Chekhov!). What is the enigmatic play (Nina's monologue) about Kostya's world soul about? Is it ridiculous, amateurish, banal – or not? And how can it be performed?

Ruth Wyneken M.A. (LMU Munich: Slavic Philology + Philosophy).

In April 1987, by hazard, she met in Moscow the director Anatoly Vasiljev (a former student of Marija Knebel) and got her first inauguration of the work of Michail Cechov. In 1988 she brought the collected Russian heritage of M C to Germany. The studio, later theatre “School of Dramatic Arts) of  Vasiljev in Moscow became her spirituel home. Since 1987 she works as a freelancer at the crossroad of literature and theatre: as a dramaturgy teacher with 20 university lectureships in Germany, Russia and Switzerland. Initiator/director of multilingual theatre-projects in D, CH and RUS, writer, editor and translator of books, dramas, stories and more than 200 publications in cultural print medias and radio. At the GITIS in Moscow she taught in the studio of Prof. Oleg Koudrjashov (once the youngest student of Marija Knebel). From 1992 to 2008 she lived in St. Petersburg.

This workshop explores points of contact and potential cross-influences between the work of Michael Chekhov and the Feldenkrais Method.

Although there is no documented direct connection between the two founders, there is an indirect link through a friend of Moshé Feldenkrais – a curious detail we’ll briefly touch upon during the workshop.

Despite their very different backgrounds – Chekhov rooted in theatre, Feldenkrais in physics and somatic education – we find striking conceptual and methodological parallels:
- Both engage imagination and refined bodily awareness.
- Both explore the interplay between inner life and outward expression.
- Both approach movement not as an expression of consciousness, attitude, and inner state.
- Both open access to creativity through embodied experience.

At the heart of the workshop is a practical, experience-based investigation: How can elements from the Feldenkrais Method enhance and support the actor’s imaginative processes as developed in the Chekhov technique – and vice versa?

Feldenkrais: The inner structure of movement – skeleton, nervous system, self-image. Through gentle, mindful movement, we explore how perception and structure shape our sense of self – refining physical presence and sensitivity, and making the actor’s instrument more available, nuanced, and alive to imaginative impulse.

Michael Chekhov: Gesture, atmosphere, sense of space. Using imaginative movement, we awaken expressive energies that reach beyond personal psychology – cultivating a dynamic, embodied connection to character, space, and ensemble.

The two approaches enter into dialogue – enriching each other and opening new pathways for artistic exploration.

This session explores the transformative power of Michael Chekhov’s acting techniques in psychiatric settings—where healing is often hard-won and hope can fade. Using Chekhov’s psychophysical exercises and imaginative methods, participants will experience how theater can help patients shift perspective, change behavior, and expand their awareness through imagination and embodied archetypes.

But this work is not only for patients. In high-stress environments like forensic psychiatry or long-term care, it is often the clinician who needs renewal. Chekhov’s tools can reawaken empathy, courage, and the capacity to imagine recovery—even when change seems unlikely. Theater becomes a space for professionals to resist cynicism and stay emotionally alive.

Chekhov wrote that “compassion may be called the fundamental of all good art… Only compassion severs the bonds of your personal limitations.” This insight speaks directly to the dual nature of the work: as a practice of healing for patients and as a form of self-preservation and re-humanization for those who care for them.

Through hands-on exercises, case examples, and reflection, this session offers a twofold path of transformation—supporting both patient healing and practitioner vitality.

Key Topics:

• The dual transformation: healing tools for both patient and therapist
• Embodied psychophysical exercises as therapeutic interventions
• Expanding imagination and archetypal awareness in patients

Reviving empathy, hope, and vitality in clinicians

Come in and explore on the magic of the golden hoop! Of course a golden hoop is an entity! And yet you will find it´s having different facets. They resonate with the different aspects of your own being. „All true artists bear within themselves a deeply rooted and often unconscious desire for transformation“, Chekhov says. Let´s give space to this, by widening our understanding of the world and ourselves. Let´s be brave and dive into transformation. No risk, no fun! (If you want to have it simple: It´s going to be a workshop on Anthroposophy with lots of space for exploration to collect experiences. So no sitting around and just talking.)

The lecture will use practical examples and exercises to describe the relationship between the four stages of Rudolf Steiner's pencil exercise and the four phases of the artistic process from Michael Chekhov's Paris Manuscript, which can contribute to the clarity of the creative process.

Around 90 min. with following exchange