About
PERFORMING YOUR PROFESSION©
WHAT IT IS
(and what it is not)
WHAT IT IS
(and what it is not)
PERFORMING YOUR PROFESSION©
Typical workshops last a full day, 8:30 a.m.- 4:45 p.m., and include brief snack and lunch breaks. Ideal workshops are retreat-like, at least one full day and partial or full second day. In these expanded workshops, participants have opportunity for individual attention.
Venues need to be empty spaces large enough to accommodate all the participants’ moving about, stretching arms out, without running into others. We are happy to come to your venue.
Some of the workshops are structured for 6-12 people. Larger workshops can also be accommodated.
Special arrangements can be made for individual or small group (up to four) coaching. These sessions should be at least three hours for maximum effectiveness. They can be scheduled on a regular basis.
Half-term or full semester course curricula for graduate professional schools are available.
- is experiencing: doing, behaving, observing, listening, feeling, problem-solving… and playing
- is collaborative
- is liberating
- enables you to perform your profession at the highest level.
- It is not
- dependent on prior theatrical experience or any talent whatsoever.
- a one-size-fits-all scheme.
- about listening to lectures, note-taking, watching PowerPoints or grinding away in a library stack by yourself.
- It does not
- tell you to walk “confidently,” talk “with confidence” — or give other vague, generalized instruction.
- prescribe particular behaviors to paste on.
- It is not “just” play, even though some of what we do is play.
FOUNDATIONS
- Psychologist Dr. Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1981 for differentiating functions of the brain hemispheres. The left brain is predominately the linear, logical, cognitive side; the right, the associative, affective, creative side.
- In the early 1980s, psychologist Dr. Howard Gardner laid out the theory of multiple intelligences; each person has approximately eight intelligences in different proportions. Beyond the intelligences, Dr. Gardner’s new work, Five Minds for the Future, predicts that people who have developed “disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful and ethical” minds will be the leaders for the 21st century.
- Social commentator Daniel H. Pink writes, in A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, that the future will be “The Conceptual Age,” no longer “The Information Age.” Success in that paradigm will depend on aptitudes distinctly different from the left brain skills necessary in the past. He identifies them as “Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, Meaning.”
WHAT YOU GAIN
You…
- learn to access your right brain and unleash your creativity, thereby consistently and predictably producing your best performance.
- deal with performance anxiety.
- acquire tools to sharpen focus, concentration and memory.
- hone observing, listening, empathic skills useful in negotiations, litigation, client/patient/Board meetings, medical settings, preaching, counseling, and leading educators.
- cultivate efficient, authentic, confident body movement, voice and speech.
- discover techniques for effective delivery of “lines.”
- identify objectives and obstacles and develop courses of action to solve problems.
- practice creative, fast thinking for optimal functioning in the moment.
- examine “theatrical” conventions for your profession: dress, voice, speech, movement, use of “props”, and setting the stage.
- value self-care by identifying and practicing the difference between your personal and professional personas.
- stretch and grow interpersonal, intrapersonal, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial and musical intelligences.
- receive materials to take with you that will remind you of techniques you can use on your own and a bibliography of related books and articles.
- enhance your professional presence.
WORKSHOPS
Typical workshops last a full day, 8:30 a.m.- 4:45 p.m., and include brief snack and lunch breaks. Ideal workshops are retreat-like, at least one full day and partial or full second day. In these expanded workshops, participants have opportunity for individual attention.
Venues need to be empty spaces large enough to accommodate all the participants’ moving about, stretching arms out, without running into others. We are happy to come to your venue.
Some of the workshops are structured for 6-12 people. Larger workshops can also be accommodated.
COACHING
Special arrangements can be made for individual or small group (up to four) coaching. These sessions should be at least three hours for maximum effectiveness. They can be scheduled on a regular basis.
COURSES
Half-term or full semester course curricula for graduate professional schools are available.