Theater Fitness Reimagined
Performers are constantly measured to fit a standard image of beauty that has been fed through systemic oppression for years. There is little to no recognition of the individual body, unless it meets the characteristics of an ingrained framework. We see on stages like Broadway, Off-Broadway, and other across the nation how performers of all groups are viewed through an “old stage lens”. So it’s no surprise when you walk into an audition and are struck by a blatant disassociation between the representation of the people you see in the room and the people you see out in the world.
After coming to this realization myself along with the discovery of the lack of knowledge available to performers on how to properly prepare their bodies for the arduous demands they face, I thought about creating a program and community for movement and physical training for artists and performers who want to achieve peak performance based on their individual bodies. My aim is to lay the ground that raises the standard of training available to performers who work to meet the demands beset upon them. This program is based on who they are and what they do as performers and artists not based on an image dictated by ‘old stage views’. As performers their bodies are their tools to voice out the particularities of life. We must accept, love, and create a new collective ground where variability of identities are celebrated not vilified.
This should be what the new stage embodies. The new stage should look like the bodies of the artists who use their voices to make it better.
With the resurgence of theaters post-Pandemic break, we must commit to empower those bodies who have been rejected for who they are, what they look like, or where they came from, and were shoved into fitting an idealistic suppressive image. We must provide all artists and performers the tools necessary to train for what they want their body to look like.
Join me in training resiliency and strength for your bodies. Prepare your body for the demands of the theater world and redefine what the stage should look like.
