Acting Exercise - Movements Derived from Animals

Movement as an actor is vital when creating a character. Not only is the movement of your body important to help establish the credibility of a character, but movement with purpose and knowledge establish a sense of confidence and self-awareness to the audience, which helps convey a character that is not defined nor hindered by the fear or worry of its performer.

The "Movement Derived from Animals" acting exercise is one of my personal favorite as it requires actors to forgo inhibitions and truly transform their movements. If you are a nervous actor, use this opportunity to finally escape from your jail of worry and fear. You are in a safe haven. You can take chances and make mistakes. Forgo your sense of being an "actor" or "human" and focus your entire being on becoming a particular animal.

Guidelines

To engage your actors within this acting exercise, you must select a single animal and instruct the actors to move as if they were this animal. Promote abstract movements, movements that are not human-like. After 30 seconds or so, call out a different animal name, again after 30 seconds call out another animal. Continue this for up to five to 10 minutes. Go through a minimum of five different animals.

Animal Suggestions

Feel free to come up with your own animal for the actors to replicate; however, I have compiled a list of animals that I typically use when instructing this exercise.

• · Chicken
• · Cow
• · Orangutan
• · Gorilla
• · Exotic Bird
• · Mouse
• · Lion
• · Pig
• · Bear
• · Fly
• · Tropical Fish
• · Woodpecker
• · Fox
• · Crow
• · Squirrel
• · Snake
• · Wolf
• · Turtle
• · Prairie Dog
• · Kitten
• · Housedog
• · Elephant
• · Moth
• · Pig

Further Exercise Notes

At the conclusion of this exercise the actors should feel warmed up, and all inhibitions should be close to being thrown out the window. If you find that one of the actors was clearly not fully committing to his movement, encourage him to push further. Perform the movements with the actors at first to help show them that this is not a "silly" exercise, but one that will help liberate them from inhibitions as well as preparing their bodies for scene study and rehearsal.