They learnt that scientist and the technologist need imagination, they need creativity to be developed they need body mind coordination, they need socialization to understand and do the work.
[Lisa Loving Dalton, Author, Teacher, Acting Coach, Life Coach and an award-winning actress, director, and filmmaker. She co-produced various documentary and narrative films. Her primary career has been as a performer: actor, clown, and stuntwoman, working professionally since 1976 in New York and Hollywood.
In March 2006, Lisa relocated to the DFW area of Texas to facilitate an increased guest-speaker schedule and to focus on publishing her work via internet, books and DVD’s. She was married for nearly 30 years to her late husband, actor Ken Kerman, has two step children, and four grandchildren. Lisa enjoys golfing for celebrity charity events, motorcycling and their adopted elephant in Kenya.
Lisa Dalton is President of the National Michael Chekhov Association and master teacher of Michael Chekhov’s acting technique. She is the co-producer of From Russia to Hollywood, an award-winning documentary that was the first ever produced about Michael Chekhov. Lisa contributed film footage to Michael Chekhov: The Dartington Years in the UK and Russia’s Planeta TV documentary on Michael Chekhov.
Since 1994, Lisa Dalton has been on the Faculty of the National Michael Chekhov Association (NMCA) Chekhov Training Intensive, training and certifying acting teachers, directors, and professional actors. This is the longest running Chekhov Intensive worldwide, and is entering its 30th consecutive year, now in Texas and New Mexico.
Lisa was the Creator/Artistic Director of the first two International Michael Chekhov workshops in the US in 1998 and 1999 at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center in Connecticut. She was on the Organizing Board of Directors of the International Michael Chekhov Association. Lisa taught in the UK, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Russia, Mexico and the Caribbean, developing applications of Michael Chekhov’s theories for stage and film directing, for artistic promotion, for on-camera acting in commercial advertising, stunt work, as well as situation comedy and auditioning for film and TV.
Lisa has numerous awards for directing stage, independent film and video, and performed in over 50 plays, 100 commercials, TV shows and films.
Additionally, Lisa holds certifications in Life Coaching, Hypnosis, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and Neurological Repatterning. Her counseling for performers and non-performers uses a wide range of modalities, including voice dialog, psycho-kinesiology, tapping, guided imagery, and energy-management techniques, including applications of Michael Chekhov’s techniques for human health and development. She practices yoga, Pilates, and meditation prayer regularly.
Lisa’s educational background includes a BA from the University of Maryland, and graduate training at American University with experimental directors Richard Schechner, Leo Shapiro, and Charles Ludlam. Extensive additional theater training includes techniques of Grotowski, Polish Mime Theatre, Meyerhold Bio-mechanics, gymnastics, combat, clown, mask, mime, circus arts, Stanislavsky, Strasberg (Actors Studio), Uta Hagen (HB Studios) and Meisner.
She is going to add her most valuable chapter in her life as she is travelling Kathmandu Nepal, radiating Michael Chekhov acting technique in this age.
School Theatre Nepal (STN) and Nepal Film Campus jointly inviting her. Tanka Chaulagain, Artistic Director of STN and host of this great event recently had a conversation with Lisa. Presented herewith is the edited version of the same.]
1. What is the magic between your age and work?
As I understand this question, the magic is I am 69 years old, and it is really the Michael Chekhov technique that keeps me young. When I am in class and I am moving with imagination and all the energies used in the Michael Chekhov work, all the sharing and teaching of them keeps me young. I have many injuries from my life that can be crippling at times. Chekhov seems to make the pain disappear. The magic between my age and my work is that my work is really my play. Michael Chekhov technique is so much fun for me to do as an actor, director, and so much fun teaching it that it keeps me young.
2. Which is important for you, theatre or film? In our context most of the artists are using theatre as a ladder to climb towards the film. Can you portray Hollywood canvas regarding this?
So, I can say yes. Ah… Both are important to me because what’s important to me is story telling. Right now, storytelling is being communicated across multiple Medias. It’s live as it’s always been throughout all of humanity, and it is digitized, and it is sent through internet, and movie theatres………. And it’s about the audience storytelling. For an artist, to consider that they would like to do film and to first study theatre is a very good idea. Live theatre will always have an impact that film never can have that is because you are in the immediate presence of the audience. And you can feel and breathe with them. Scientifically it is shown that the audiences literally start breathing in the same rhythm. As an audience, there are mirror neurons inside our bodies that start reflecting the actors’ bodies and a silent symphony is created invisibly. When you do that as a group, in an audience you have very special state of sacred ritual. And the artist is being immediately – in that moment – impacted and creating a harmonious exchange. The harmonious communions as Michael Chekhov called it with the inspiration with the author, with our colleagues, with the lights, sounds, music and our fellow partners and directors-who are leading the thoughts and ideas, are all being mixed and exchanged with the breath of the audience in a live situation. And that will never die. It will never actually go away because it’s a part of what humanity needs to grow and move forward. But film reaches many, many, many highs and lows. And film can reach millions and millions at one time and can be kept as a legacy for generations with technology. So, being able to translate your career and move back and forth from theatre to film is the best, that’s the best. And, that’s the best.
In Hollywood, when you have lots of stage experience and that’s listed on your resume and the casting directors and directors and producers understand that every credit you have theatre, you’ve usually put in at least six to eight weeks a work at least or a month of rehearsal and then a month of running, or more. If you’ve done a proper show, you’ve done many, more performances. This shows the people who will hire you for film that you can stay concentrated, focused, consistently and professionally. It means somebody liked you enough keep you in hired for months. And so having theater experience looks good for those who want to hire you. Now, what scares them is that you may not be able to adjust in style from the theater which is usually larger than the film. The wonderful thing about Michael Chekhov technique is it is an acting technique for all formats and all styles. It is a technique that allows you to become an athlete of human thoughts, feelings and desires and be able to dial up your movements to reveal (so they can be seen, heard, or felt clearly by the audience) or radiate and dial down to conceal or “mask” how much you let the camera see. With Radiation your stillness is powerful. You could be like Clint Eastwood whose stillness on film is a very powerful Michael Chekhov technique. So, you understand people like Meryl Streep and Hugh Jackman came from the world of theatre and musical theatre and then became film stars. This is true of many people in Hollywood. There are artists who are successful in Hollywood who were not trained in theatre. Their acting is based on their looks and their character type. This type: pretty, young leading girl and handsome leading man, for example. They will often start playing that same character repeatedly for many films, which may be successful and may make money but soon they get bored and tired of that. Then they want to really learn to act and start to really change how they are performing. This is what Julia Roberts did for example. She made a lot of money in Pretty Woman and other movies. But she won an Oscar when she changed her character for Erin Brockovich. And so, you see many great actors who started straight into film, with no theatre, over the years had to learn the same technique that theatre artists used which are the arts of transformation: changing who and how you are. In film, you have the same audience watching you movie after movie after movie. And either they love you just exactly for what you are, or they want to see a new you a every single time. Theatre will help you able to do either the one- be a personality-based star or transformational actor. And which one of those is your destiny? Mr. Chekhov says that truly is your own destiny. We don’t really know which: whether you are supposed to be a transformative actor or if your personality type is need very badly by the culture? It is best to train to be transformational so that even if you play the same archetype repeatedly, can you be unique and creative each time.
3. Can you elaborate Hollywood observations on south Asian art through a bird’s eye view?
I believe that Hollywood observes south Asia in a very limited view. We see Bollywood and we see martial arts and Slum Dog Millionaire. We need to expand our understanding. Recently streaming services like Netflix are airing and are dubbing many more films and TV series from south Asia. This is bringing to America the greater understanding of the south Asia culture. We have very limited exposure to south Asian arts. Those who train in schools know some little information about Kabuki, Noh, and Kathakali. So little is actually known by the public about the culture and therefore very little by the producers and writers and those people who believe that south Asian stories can sell. These are the distributors who buy the films and sell them to the audiences. So, this training we are doing could be great to inspire south Asian art. When the south Asian art can be sold- to be understood, dubbed to English, then more people will want to watch it.
4. What is different between theatre and life? You can connect this with Michael Chekhov technique.
Mr. Chekhov created a technique that helps every human being become a healthier, happier human being. What this means is when you understand that you are creative artists and you are born to do the art that you love, your love which is at the heart of Michael Chekhov’s technique involves your whole life. It involves how you see life, beauty, ease, entirety of form. It helps to express everything in your body, and it helps to create beautiful images and be able to radiate them and receive them. It helps you become in strong contact with your partner, with your environment, with the inspirations, communions, ah, with direct contact with your audience. It helps to develop sensitivity and compassion as a human being.
What’s a different in theatre and life is that, in theatre when you are performing, you are creating a living work of art in that moment. You are transforming your everyday self into the character and the story. The story being told-the message of the story- is the guiding principle for all the decisions. In your life, you are the writer, and you are the director, the actor, and the producer. You can use the same guidelines that Mr. Chekhov use to create the great story for yourself to create great life. What is the message in the story of your life? We can apply many of Chekhov’s techniques to tell a better story in our own lives, same as for theatre. In theatre you are the character—not your everyday self. The theatre has a clear beginning, middle, ending for each story it tells. Perhaps each lifetime is a play? But you are always you and in life you are not pretending and playing, you are living the life of an eternal soul and spirit. I hope you play, use imagination for life and have fun in life.
So, the difference between theatre and our daily life is about the length of time we play this one character and tell this one story. Theatre is for one show and life is for this one life and many. If we live our lives as a work of art focused on the good, the true and the beautiful, and do the same in theatre, Michael Chekhov helps us do that with both.
5. Why is Michael Chekhov the best acting technique? What are its limitations?
Michael Chekhov technique is the best technique because it trains every part of the human being: the body, the mind, the spirit, and the soul. This is only technique that deeply honors the invisible parts of the human being. We could say western technique because I don’t know enough south Asian technique to say. We know Michael Chekhov technique emerged from eastern south Asian influences and spiritual influences from India and from Russia and that combination that was evolving as it came from Russia through England through New York to Hollywood and now to Nepal. And, so it is a technique that helps develop the freedom and creativity and most essentially the art of love. It uses love as a fundamental task and skill and force to create. When we cultivate the nature of love, it brings love into all our performances, into everything that we share. We raise the amount of love in humanity, on the planet. When we work from love, we can do it for endless hours which is going right back to the first questions the magic of age and my work which is play! Michael Chekhov is play and is really integrating and healing. In the Michael Chekhov technique, we hold the health and welfare of the audience in the center of our heart. And that’s why we create: to improve the health and welfare of our audience and that the techniques helps to create very healthy artists which spring from their higher powerful nature. When they are involved in work from this highest nature of love. it brings that into the world. And we need that very badly. It trains the physical body, to be able to express the imagination. Some techniques only train the minds, and they don’t train the body to reveal the sensitivities of our thinking, our feelings and our willing. Mr. Chekhov invites us to be gymnasts (athletes) of thoughts, feelings and desires and be able to get great images and radiate them and receive them from each other. So, the technique invites you to be inspired by your partners but also from the author, director, or guidance from your full imagination, from the character, the costume or from the box or prop that you have around you. The set, from the lighting, from the music, anything could be inspiration for your performances not just your partner. So you are trained to listen and sense and feel and hear to respond to all the visible and invisible elements that exist. It honors the fact that there are invisible forces, like Atmosphere, which are called intangible aspects in our existence. Even though we can’t see them, we use them and build our relationship with them. We can make contact with our partners or without our partners and always with our audiences which gives them the experience of being seen, heard, and felt.
The limitations of Mr. Chekhov’s technique are in two rounds. One is that very few people know about it. The power of the technique can be great even if just one is using it as an individual. It still creates a powerful performance with your partner in film or onstage. But if you have entire production that understands the Chekhov technique: the director, the fellow actors, the designers, the writer, you can create you can multiply the power of that and create what Mr. Chekhov called the theatre of the future and bring it into the now.
The other limitation is that because Chekhov technique is very fun and you can come in and do quickly one exercise after another, many people learn a few exercises and they don’t understand the feeling of whole-how everything connects. They don’t know to apply it in many different environments. The specialty of the way I teach is I unite all the forces together and continue holding what Michael Chekhov calls the Five Guiding Principal of learning. These include working with the technique and understanding the whole is related each individual part of the technique. The work is hologram. It is a holographic technique where when you learn one aspect of it, you embrace and engage the feeling of the whole. The limitation of just getting a taste or one experiential exercise without understanding the subtle nuances that lead to a new way of life, some people think of it as a bag of tricks, as it if is too easy! Some think acting must be painful and that a life as an artist must be painful. NO. This is false and a bad lie that has damaged the mental health of artists since the 20th century. Artists create art because they love. Chekhov awakens that. Bottom line is that it is uplifting and healing experience for everyone who engages it fully, as we will in Nepal.
6. Do you have any inner message to tell to the people from Russia to Hollywood to south Asia? If you like you can give a brief this answer.
The most important gift that I can bring to you is the love and passion of Michael Chekhov. I hope for you that it helps you feel the power of yourself as an artist and story teller, to be able to bring the stories that you want to bring the world whether it’s on the stage or on camera. My hope for you is that you follow love with yourself as an artist and your skills and talents and the mission you carry as you serve humanity.
7. Michael Chekhov indicates ‘the actor of the future.’ Who are they: me or coming generation?
The answer is yes, the future is now for Mr. Chekhov perspective. The actor of the future is one who calls the audiences’ health, welfare and best interest in their heart and trains themselves to be able to communicate with each other, the audiences, the author, the materials, the imagination, the invisible elements, the aspects of spirit and then can radiate and receive them among each other. The actor of future holds the love of the audience and the love of their art and love of themselves at the center and is able to give and receive that healing. Actor of future brings healing to the audience, so you may be that right now. The Michael Chekhov technique will help you become the actor of future now and it has helped me become that and I want to help you become that.
8. Which period is the golden period for Michael Chekhov technique?
I don’t think it’s happen yet. Think any age which create an opportunity for Michael Chekhov’s work to be broadly experience will be golden. The gold is within us and if we can share it than we create our own golden age. My vision is that Michael Chekhov’s work will permeate the field of actor training across the world. We know that it is permeating Asia there are Chekhov teachers are working now in Bali, in Tokyo, Korea, in Taipei, in Mumbai, there are teachers in Jakarta, there are teachers in south Asia, and we hope to create more of them through our work which will help the true golden age of Michael Chekhov emerge in the future. That will be when all the entertainment industry is creating the work where they are holding the health and welfare of humanity in their hearts and creating out of love rather than out of fear of box office failure.
9. Why is Michael Chekhov technique important for society? This technique will be relevant for how many years?
Michael Chekhov technique is inspired by ancient tradition from many cultures and tribes. Michael Chekhov technique looks at what kind of energies are present in peak performances, and it seeks to help us learn how to create those peak performances patterns on command. This is one of the reasons why this is so powerful. Because any actor, any artist who feels that their inspiration and ability to express their creativity is limited, is basically operating out of fear. So, if an actor thinks they need to stay in character for three years or isolate from their family or stay as the character not themselves while they eat their lunch, dinner or while they dress, while getting ready, they are operating out of their fear. Will I be able to find the character if I stop acting while I say hi to my mom or kiss my children? And that kind of fear based acting permeates the performances itself. It affects the audience on an invisible level. So, society needs the Michael Chekhov technique to be able to create from the higher self. This self knows how to connect quickly and easily with the character and can find it even years later because it is in communion with all of humanity and with the higher spiritual forces. In that regard, the essence of Michael Chekhov’s work will never become irrelevant. It will always be relevant, whether it is known as Michael Chekhov’s work or not, it is a separate thing. We don’t need to make Michael Chekhov into a god. We need to understand the principle behind the power of the divine forces in us and the work as an actor, as a conduit, a pathway or container for higher forces. We access our higher self and reveal or show the character in a way that brings uplift, education, and enlightenment to the world. The need for it never goes away and hahahahaha, that’s it.
10. Which Lisa will survives forever Actress, Acting Coach, Author, Director?
Hahaha, this is a very fun question because I haha … never thought of it before. I began acting when I was five years old and I wrote, produced, and directed my first play when I was ten. Every time I act, I am learning how to teach. I also taught my first class in when I was ten. So, whenever I act, I am watching and learning how to be better and figure out how to teach the lesson that I am learning in a rehearsal or on the set and the training classroom. Then my writing becomes about that. I also write poetry and biography, but the enduring aspect of my legacy is teaching, and my writing reflects my teaching. My directing and my acting inform my teaching and my writing. So, they all come together but they do believe ultimately the Lisa Dalton acting coach is the enduring aspect of my legacy. Thank you for asking that.
11. How are your observing digitalized world and theatre? What kind of audiences are visiting theatres frequently?
I believe that first, because of the ability to record live performances, we have many more historical records of live theatre, and we have with the digital age, many people performing live on-camera online, doing video performances from their homes and connecting with the people from any part of the world. They are performing it live in front of audiences and recording it. So, having it as a record-there is something beautiful about that. It does not and will not ever replace being in the same space and breathing in the same air with the artists and there is difference between hearing live music or recorded music and song. A recorded image of live performances is better than none and that will continue exits. Regarding whom audiences are coming to the theatre itself we don’t know.
Broadway closed twenty shows this month. The audiences are not all coming back. Many of the small theatre across USA were mostly attended by older people and many of them are not coming back to the public theatres, neither movie theatre nor the live stage theatre. We do know there are still people who will pay $1000 to see a Broadway show. What is it they want from that show? To be deeply transformed by the magic. So, we are leading to cultivate the new audience and set of people. We, as theatre people, must make sure that we are delivering magical experiences to the audiences that they cannot get on film, and they cannot get sitting in their home. So, that is up to us now to create the transformational theatre and promote that theatre in this way. In the future we will be able to do that together through Chekhov.
12. What’s your analysis of Shakespeare to this era forms, playwright, stage, artist’s position?
We have four hundred years of Shakespeare, the most powerful playwright that we have in certainly in the western canon. Across centuries, audiences are touched by Shakespeare as he writes of universal humanity. The deeply inspired artistry of the language itself, the beauty of imagery, metaphor or deep messages and the Chekhov technique work beautifully together.
In Shakespeare’s day, men dressed as women. Women were not allowed on stage. Today we have an entire troupe of Shakespearean women being represented and we have every ethnicity and every gender expression being represented and the every ethnicity capability, all of the cultures and social positions are being represented through the words of Shakespeare.
So, I think Shakespeare going to continue to exist and to thrive many different ways. Michael Chekhov loved Shakespeare and felt it was okay to cut it and rearrange the scene and create the story you want to tell through it.
The bottom line is the storyteller sacrifices their dedication to the uplifting, educating, healing of audience and the artist and anyone words could be used, if done so with the intent of love.
13. Why do the Oscars only select hunger, slums, poverty, and war from Asia? This question is raised by some south Asian critics frequently.
I believe that they do that for a great deal of subject matter across the board for any country. In United States they are representing war, crime, and poverty. They are representing the tragedy of the world and they make story telling out of conflict, conflict is the heart of storytelling.
So, the stories we are exposed to from south Asia depends on who in the USA is aware of what stories are being told, what films are coming out of Asia. They must be understood by the western mind, by the western identity for sales purposes. So, what we know is Bollywood, martial arts movies, and poverty. We look at the short films and documentaries that the Oscar select and nominate, they are always about some sort of tragedy. Somewhere around the world there are big problems not being well addressed and those are the ones that make it to the nomination. So, for Asia to be able to get the stories of humanity beyond war, poverty, slums, and hunger, we need people from Asia to connect to the power forces of Hollywood’s marketing and distribution. Then those lesser-known films can become known because of streaming with Netflix and Amazon, for example. There are more long form storytelling and films and TV series that are being played in America now. The academy that elects the Oscars are getting exposed due to digitalization.
So, we now have many more non-English film and TV shows being dubbed in English, especially with Netflix who has created its own dubbing center. Before it was only English films and TV shows being dubbed and subtitle into non-English languages. So, process of dubbing is easier and more available. Also creating subtitles is easier technologically. Now the skill set of being able to film in English, film in Nepali or Hindi or Turkish-whatever it is, is useful. When more people speak in way that can be understood, when we have more translators who can dub into the languages of all around the world, more international production can be shared. There is more international production being shared now among many topics than ever exists before. The ones that are succeeding have something special-a concept or super powerful performances. So, there is a great deal of hope changing the perception of western viewers regarding south Asia. I feel that our work together can contribute to that.
14. Where do you find the position of art in the world?
The world doesn’t yet fully appreciate the power of the arts and we need help them do that. In the early twentieth century, much of the United States eliminated arts from the education. They stopped teaching music and painting and theatre in schools, and they created a thing called Science, technology, English and Math. The called is STEM.
Now, they have had to change STEM into STEAM. Science, Technology, English, ARTS and Math because they learned that scientist and the technologist need imagination. They need creativity to be developed. They need body-mind coordination. They need socialization to understand and do the work. They need the discipline to conceive of a whole project on a timeline and delivery it as a team—that’s THEATRE! They need creativity which is faster through cultural activity. It is the cultural arts which sustain themselves throughout eons after the rest of the politics fall away. We know this and we need to bring the arts forward and the arts are definitely in a struggle now, as we’ve spoken about its difficulty economically. Scientifically, when we spend 5 minutes in a state of appreciation, we boost our immune system for over 6 hours. So when the artist and the audience are together with appreciation, when our silent symphony is playing in the invisible spheres, we are growing healthier and happier. Art is essential to develop harmony and peace in the world. Art is spirit made manifest. Only humans create art. Only live performance creates living art that never repeats itself.