Attention and Coordination in Process of Education of Actors

Abstract

Scenic attention is one the most significant skills for actors. An actor’s work demands multifaceted attention, as no details should skip from his/her attention while being on stage, should lead easy and effortless communication with the stage partner or draw attention from one detail to another. At the same time, she/he should be able to control the surroundings in terms of being able to move easily within the space. Most important issue is that an actor becomes fully engaged and concentrated during the performance. All the above-mentioned demands tension of attention and efforts from an actor.

During the education process, the development of the attention support to the actor is elaboration of different skills, and one of the most significant skills a student should obtain is skill of coordination that demands the maximal mobilization of attention.

Coordination represents one basic skill of body control. Coordination is the ability of combining and integration of different independent movements and all the muscles of the body are involved in a whole process.

The coordination ability is reflexive, and in frequent cases, it is revealed automatically. During the walk we do not comprehend the motion of hands and feet, but if we become more attentive we will see that they are moving in different directions though rhythmically. If a person suffers from impaired coordination of body, he/she has difficulties not only in movement and orientation of relevant space, but in finding himself within the space.

Quite a lot of attention is dedicated to the development of coordination ability in the musical rhythmic education process. The music accompaniment of each exercise is vividly characterized with rhythmicity and big importance is devoted to the calculation of the longevity of sounds and metric size.

Thus, attention and coordination plays crucial role in actor’s creative life. The elaboration of these skills is a result of special rhythmical exercises (one of such exercise is given at the end of the paper), which serve to the generation of comprehensive skill of attention and coordination for the actors. Later these skills enable actors at the stage to control the scenic space, partner, performance tempo-rhythm, movements, speech and etc.

The paper suggests one such exercise that is intended for development of attention and coordination.