By Alison Henderson, Registered Movement Pattern Analyst

One problem for an actor is character similarity — does each character portrayed exhibit the actor’s habitual movements? Having a Movement Pattern Analysis profile gives the actor an understanding of his own thought process so he can see how it differs from his character’s process. Moreover, he can learn his personal movement characteristics/habits that arise from this thought process.

Until now, movement training has looked at body habits separate from the thought process, rather than connected. Actors are taught to go to a “neutral” place devoid of natural habits rather than understanding their organic movement in the deep way that comes from the MPA profile experience.

As an actor and director, I saw a direct relationship between MPA and character development early in my own MPA training.  MPA bridges the psychological and physical. By analyzing a text for a character’s thought process (psychological motivation of the character), the type of movement shape and effort qualities from the MPA framework that will match the thought can be utilized by an actor for physical character transformation. With his MPA Profile, he will know which movements from his habits match the character and what he needs to change. As Laban stated, “It is of the greatest importance for the actor-dancer to recognize that such habitual inner attitudes (i.e. Decision-Making Preferences uncovered by MPA) are the basic indications of what we call character and temperament”  (parenthetical phrase mine).

Finally, MPA can smooth the transition for actors between movement in the studio and movement on the stage. By changing the intensity of the effort and shape discovered through MPA-based text analysis, actors can be fully embodied on stage in every genre without the fears of movement appearing “put on” or work in the studio not transferring well to “realistic” acting. My own MPA Training for Actors called TYPE (Transform Your Predictable Expression) is still in development.  However, I see a future where movement directors are part of every production because movement is crucial to creating the world of the play—moving all theater to include physicality rather than confining movement to the separate genre of “physical theater.”