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Sunday, May 28, 2017

ACTORWIZE



(Rajesh Gopie)

Respected actor, playwright, director, producer and qualified acting teacher, Rajesh Gopie, will be running a series of three mid-year courses geared particularly for those wishing to learn about professional acting course for film and TV as part of his ActorWize programme – a foundation phase course for new recruits; an intermediate phase for those who have attended his basic ActorWize Course already, and a vac youth programme for high school learners.

Created by Rajesh Gopie, the course is called the Professional Acting Course for Film and TV. It will be taking place at Durban High School campus, in Durban’s Berea.

The classes offer a unique training style with a psycho-physical approach. Gopie describes his Professional Acting Course for Film and TV as, “Classes are geared towards providing the building blocks needed to develop acting skills. The compressed length of the course and the focused level of study needs commitment and intensive collaboration among the participants. The emphasis is placed on the physical blocks which stop the instinctual body from doing what it should do naturally. However, fear and bad experiences which plague our lives result in psychological blocks which prevent the actor from reaching full potential. These blocks will be addressed, unpacked and managed during the course. ”

Gopie ran his inaugural Durban course in January, to a capacity group of enthusiastic budding film and TV actors. It was so popular, and received such great feedback, that Gopie is running the small group bespoke four week course again starting on 13 June every Tuesday and Thursday from 17h00 until 20h00 and on Saturdays from 10h00 until 13h00. He will also be running a follow-up course going into more detail and teaching more advanced acting skills geared particularly (although not exclusively) to those who attended his first course, starting on June 12 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings from 17h00 until 20h00.

Making use of the July vacs, Gopie is also running a course for high school learners: ideally for those between 11 and 16 years old who want to learn about developing acting techniques for camera. He will be giving a modified version of his Professional Acting Course for Film and TV geared specially for younger performers. He will be taking this for the first ten days of the July school holiday.

Gopie is a professional multi-award winning actor and playwright who has worked on film, TV, stage and radio - locally and internationally. In the last five years, he has turned his focus to training South African actors and pursued a masters degree in actor training and coaching at the world-renown Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (RCSSD) in London. RCSSD boasts an alumni the likes of Judi Dench, Laurence Olivier, Christina Scott Thomas, Rufus Sewell, Vanessa Redgrave and Harold Pinter.

Gopie is a recipient of the prestigious Oppenheimer and Guilford scholarships which enabled him to study abroad. At RCSSD he specialised in coaching for screen and studied under coaching mentors Amanda Brennan (Head of Screen acting at RCSSD), Mel Churcher (Acting Coach on Narnia, Harry Potter) and Geoff Coleman (Star Trek, Miramax acting consultant), all world class coaches in the UK and US.

Gopie has extensive experience producing theatre at community, university and professional level across the country, and has acted in local and international films as well as in television series such as Scandal and Zero Tolerance. His stage work repertoire includes his acclaimed and much-travelled self-penned solo show Out of Bounds and his ensemble piece The Coolie Odyssey, as well as playing the lead in Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the Baxter Theatre under the direction of Dame Janet Suzman.

For more information: prices, dates and times of the three courses, contact: 082 872 5487 or email: info@actorwize.com, or visit www.actorwize.com. Participant numbers for all courses are limited!