"It's a privilege and an honour to learn from someone as experienced and knowledgeable in the field of performance as Ira Seidenstein. Since I met Ira and started practising his method regularly, a lot, if not everything, has changed for the better. I foresee that it will easily remain the single most important encounter in my life.
In Ira's work I have learned to honour my own creativity. It has also given me a discipline, a solid practice. In other words: it has been the end of dabbling and the beginning of being a professional artist. I finally know what I'm doing and it gives me a confidence that is very real. It has not only changed the way I perceive myself, as a performer, as a teacher, as a person, but also the way I think of the activity I'm involved in.
Ira knows the demands of the profession through first-hand experience - a significant detail that makes a priceless complement to his teaching of the art and the craft. He knows what it takes in the world of acting, clown and theatre, and he tells it like it is. Or rather: he makes you question the given circumstances - you begin opening up to the possibility that perhaps "it's not what you think it is". And once you open that door... you're well on your way to entering a different space. A different mind space. I have seen people's worlds being turned upside down, inside out, in Ira's classes. He describes his work as being "deceivingly simple" - it is. I'd almost call it infuriatingly simple. If you assign yourself to this simplicity - which is exactly that: logic and devoid of mystification - the illusions fall, one after the other. Illusions about yourself, illusions about what you're doing (or not!), illusions about the world.
While Ira's teaching certainly heeds Chaplin's dictum that one cannot be professional enough, it goes further than just being about "the work". One of Ira's exceptional qualities as a teacher is that he won't forget you - and in case you forget yourself, he will remind you. In his classes you are never just an actor or a student, you are first of all a person. Ira's method allows you to practise a direct encounter with yourself that is not self indulgent but honest and true. The results are always astonishing. I've never seen so much truly original work in an acting or clown class. In a way, you realise that you are more important than what it is that you are trying to achieve. And that makes all the difference in what you actually do achieve. There is no opposition between personal and professional. Ira acknowledges the world outside of the studio, the business side of it, the dirty stuff a lot of teachers won't (or can't) talk about. Learning with Ira is likely to be your best bet to become an exciting professional. Someone people want to work with. Ira's work is not about serving the industry, it's about serving you in the industry.
The Seidenstein Method has become an invaluable asset to me; hardly a day goes by when I do not benefit from it directly, whether it be professionally or personally.
I cannot recommend Ira Seidenstein's work enough. As far as I can see, an actor could make no better investment in his career than to sign up for a class with Ira."
CASPAR SCHJELBRED - BIOGRAPHY
Caspar Schjelbred lives in Paris where
he is the artistic director of the Improfessionals and also
codirects
the
improvisational theatre school, Impro Academy. He holds
an M.A. in History of science from the Sorbonne, where he specialised
in the study
of
emotion -
focusing particularly on the French psychologist
Théodule
Ribot
(whose
theories were influential in
Stanislavky's research in actors' training).
Caspar first met Ira in 2008. After a number of short workshops in Paris, he attended the Quantum Clown Residencies (Brisbane, Australia) in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
With Ira as mentor
he now applies The Seidenstein Method in all his work, particularly in the development of his improvisational theatre training concept "Impro Supreme" (see www.improsupreme.com for more details).
Caspar has acted in several independent music videos and short films as well as in two independent feature films.
In July 2011 played the role of Puck in a French production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and
is currently working on his first solo project Wilde Tales of Love.