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Theatre, Dance and Performance Training
ISSN: 1944-3927 (Print) 1944-3919 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rtdp20
Body awareness in acting – a case study of TRE as
a supporting tool for drama students’ personal
and professional development
Cathrine Scharff Thommessen & Marit Fougner
To cite this article: Cathrine Scharff Thommessen & Marit Fougner (2020): Body awareness in
acting – a case study of TRE as a supporting tool for drama students’ personal and professional
development, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, DOI: 10.1080/19443927.2019.1694971
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19443927.2019.1694971
Published online: 28 Apr 2020.
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Body awareness in acting –a case
study of TRE as a supporting tool for
drama students’personal and
professional development
Cathrine Scharff Thommessen and Marit Fougner
Abstract
Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) is an approach that assists the body in
releasing deep muscular patterns of tension originated from stressful and traumatic
experiences. This approach is included as a tool in the Method Acting curriculum of the
three years Bachelor in Acting at NSKI University College in Norway. In this study, we
explore drama students’experiences with TRE and its use to promote personal welfare
and professional performance. Focus group data was collected from twelve drama students
and subjected to a thematic analysis. Three central themes emerged from the data
material; (1) increased self-awareness of body and mind, 2) skills performance under
pressure and (3) increased ability to create a character. We conclude that TRE is a useful
tool in eliminating emotional tension and in sharpening the awareness of self as an
individual and of one's own being, actions or thoughts, so increasing focus and energy in
Method Acting.
Keywords: method acting, drama students, self -awareness, mind-body, tension
release exercises, reflective practice,
Introduction
Professional acting is associated with the art of awareness. Thoughts,
emotions, and bodies of the actors must be alive when on stage if they
are to create a specific character (Kemp 2012). Somatic movement prac-
tices, like Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais and other self-use techniques,
are used in actor training to enhance the actor’s presence through
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 2020
https://doi.org/10.1080/19443927.2019.1694971
psychosocial awareness (Polatin 2013). The Norwegian NSKI University
College has, as an alternative to these approaches, included The Tension
and Trauma Release Exercises technique (TRE) in their acting curriculum
since 2010 (Curriculum NSKI 2016).
Few empirical studies have examined the effectiveness of body psycho-
physical approaches upon the learning experiences and outcomes of
drama students. The purpose of this study was to increase our under-
standing of the embodied learning of actor students, who use TRE, and
to explore and describe students’personal and professional experiences
with TRE in relation to the prescribed learning outcomes.
Cathrine S. Thommessen, the paper’sfirst author is the responsible
teacher for the regular TRE classes at NSKI. She is a dance- and move-
ment teacher, certified massage therapist, trauma therapist, as well as
experienced in movement-based embodied contemplative practices like
Feldenkrais, Yoga, and Continuum. She has several years of experience
with teaching movement in general and TRE in particular, both individu-
ally and in groups, and with TRE as personal development practice. She
trusts the body’s innate capacity to heal within the right circumstances.
Marit Fougner, this paper’s second author, is a physiotherapist with
28 years of experience as a preclinical teacher for an educational pro-
gramme in physiotherapy. Personal experiences with TRE and a study of
body-mindfulness techniques in chronic pain management (Fougner & Killi
Haugstad 2015) became an incentive to explore acting students’experien-
ces for possible stress regulatory strategies promoting self-knowledge and
self-care among students in different programmes.
Theoretical framework
Mastering tension in acting
Konstantin Stanislavski, considered to be the founder of modern realistic
acting tradition, introduced in the beginning of the 20th century, what he
called “psycho-physical training”as a tool that could be used by student
actors to understand and master bodily experiences (Stanislavski 2016).
Long-term practice of this technique aims to establish a connection
between internal and external elements of acting and can lead to an actor
developing an understanding of why he or she is acting in a certain way
on stage. One of the first principles of this training programme was relax-
ation. Movements without tension were, according to Stanislavski, the
first thing a student-actor had to master to acquire concentration
on stage.
Lee Strasberg, Stanislavski’s American successor (Merlin 2016), was the
creator of Method Acting. Strasberg had the same raw material and chal-
lenges as all other teachers and visionaries following Stanislavski: the
actor’s body and consciousness (Blair 2008). In “the Method”, the actors
are trained to consciously use themselves as a tool to attain reality and
truth on stage (Strasberg 1987). Strasberg continued to emphasise relax-
ation as tension release. According to him, tension was unnecessary
energy interrupting and interfering with the natural functioning of the
2C. S. Thommessen and M. Fougner
body, the human instrument. He was particularly concerned about ten-
sion in the upper and lower back muscles and noticed that some psychol-
ogists connected this tension with strong emotional experiences. As well
as influencing the actor's inner life, emotions, thoughts and body aware-
ness, muscle tension also impedes the ability to move and to be moved
freely, according to Strasberg. Tension, is therefore the natural foe of
relaxation and concentration, both closely related, and needs to be
released by both actors and actor students.
Stress, tension and trauma
Cognitive neuroscience has given new insight in acting and actor training
(Blair 2008). A renewed understanding of the connections between biol-
ogy and cognition, how the neural networks fire together and wire
together, can help us explain the relationship between bodily action,
emotional experiences, and thinking in relation to stress and tension.
Encountering stressful situations can lead to the fight, flight or freeze
response, activated by a reaction from the autonomic nervous system
(ANS) also known as the acute stress response. This refers to a physio-
logical reaction triggered when we feel a strong emotion like fear or anxiety
(Porges 2011). Muscle tension is part of this automatic, unconscious reac-
tion to stress, and can lead to deep chronic tension lasting even long after
the stressful situation is over. It is as if the event is stuck in the body or as
Strasberg says (1987, p.97): “[o]bviously, both the tension and the pain
were the result of conditioning”. The primary muscles involved in this pro-
cess are the flexor muscles, especially the iliopsoas muscle that is the stron-
gest hip flexor, able to contract to pull the body into a ball to protect inner
organs (Koch, 1997). The organism’s stress-response also includes affective
and cognitive aspects, which all together when it is stuck in the organism is
what is known as trauma (Levine 2015). Trauma consist of long-term mem-
ory, both explicit (also called declarative) and implicit memory. Explicit
memory has to do with what we can recall, for instance from a particular
event or from our childhood. The implicit memory on the other hand has
to do with automatic bodily responses, either as procedural memory
related to skills, as bicycling, or as emotional memory related to what we
perceive in our surroundings, like social challenges or danger. The latter is
experienced in the body as physical sensations. Connected to thoughts and
reflections, these sensations become more pronounced feelings.
Feelings are mental experiences of body states, according to one of the
most renowned neuroscientists Antonio Damasio (1999). This understand-
ing explains how bodily reactions influence on how we feel and how we
think, and supports Strasberg’s(1987) pronounced understanding of the
connection between the actor’s mental and physical states. The interaction
between physical, mental and affective states is further emphazised in the
Method when pointing to muscle tension as interfering with the actor’s
thoughts, emotions and inner awareness. Since being tensed is as much an
emotional as a physical condition, likewise with relaxation. Reducing tension
is therefore about increasing the possibilities of being present with own
emotions. A wide range of relaxation techniques is used in acting for
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 3
freedom of movement, emotional regulation, to focus attention and to
reduce rumination, depression, and stress. The most common methods
used in actor training include the Feldenkrais Method (Queste 2002), the
Alexander technique, Tai Chi (Barker 2002; Forsythe 1996), and Yoga
(Kapsali 2013). In Feldenkrais, the main part of the method consists of
attention to how we move, and how to integrate more functional and
organic movements. The approach includes awareness of the whole body,
the nervous system, muscles, skeleton, as well as the environment. The
Alexander technique is a way of learning to bring the whole person into
balance through working on body awareness, and alignment, to stay con-
nected to the body even in moments of stress. Tai Chi is also an integral
part of acting training to promote the innate integrity between mind and
body. Tai Chi uses movement, breath and visual focus. Because it is slow,
the students can work on self-awareness of body and movement, similar to
both Feldenkrais and Alexander. Yoga emphasises a combination of breath
work, stretching or positions (asanas) and meditation, but the different
approaches vary in intensity and focus concerning these core elements.
Yoga facilitates an awareness of the body, its tensions patterns, and willing-
ness to explore the limitations exposed through bodily exercise.
Many movement-based embodied contemplative practices, as the
above, are based on intentionally generated self-willed movements
(Schmalzl et al. 2014). These can be understood as practices starting
from top-down conscious actions, thus inviting bottom-up processes to hap-
pen. By top-down we mean processes arising from anatomically higher
brain areas, such as neo cortex, influencing lower brain areas and the
rest of the body (Schore 1994). Top-down approaches include thinking
and reflecting involving earlier experiences and memory.
The term bottom-up is understood here to mean processes that arise
from anatomically lower brain areas and body, and then influencing higher
regions such as feelings and thoughts. The idea, according to which spon-
taneous body movements have emotional effect, dates back to 19
th
cen-
tury psychology (Zarrilli et al. 2013). The James-Lange theory of emotion,
built on the work of psychologists William James and Carl Lange, gives
insights into how spontaneous movements happened before conscious
feeling, not because of it: perception follows expression. The theory has
influenced much of the 20
th
century acting theory, like Stanislavski’s work
on physical actions, and the psychophysical tradition from Meyerhold
onwards. But the theory is used differently by these two; while in
Stanislavski’s system the actor first created a character from within,
Meyerhold’s more biomechanic approach instructed the actor to develop
a character from without, employing external movements first.
TRE as an acting training method
Some practices may involve spontaneous movements that are not con-
trolled by the mind: bottom-up processes. They are based on the ability
to surrender to spontaneous movement and to being in a state of recep-
tivity, vibrations/tremors being a part of the animal-like movements that
can arise (Sheets-Johnstone, 1999). Some practices consist of exercises
4C. S. Thommessen and M. Fougner
designed to release tension from the surface level, while others also deal
with deep chronic tension. In common, they all tend to seek relaxation,
body awareness and wellbeing.
The Tension and Trauma Release Exercises technique (TRE) created
by David Berceli (2008) is an alternative to the methods commonly used
in acting training. TRE is based on both self-willed and involuntary spon-
taneous movement, including both top-down and bottom-up processes,
also dealing with deep chronic tension. The automatic and spontaneous
movements, which are the most central part of the approach, are what
makes TRE different from other techniques.
Through whole-body tremors, TRE aims to discharge profound tension
patterns originated from the stress response. Central to this approach
are the flexor muscles, especially the iliopsoas muscle, which is located
around the lower back and pelvis, one of the most important areas to
work on tension release, according to Strasberg. Strasberg (1987) also
shares the view of tension as energy stuck in the body to be released.
Similarly, to Strasberg’s relaxation technique, TRE seeks flexibility in
muscles and connective tissue, awareness of internal body sensations and
a feeling of presence in oneself.
TRE consist of simple exercises specifically designed to induce the nat-
ural trembling and shaking mechanism of the body. TRE-induced tremors
come from the limbic part of the brain and are therefore not under our
conscious control. David Berceli created TRE to be a tool that anyone
can learn to use to help work with his or her own tensions - alone, in
a group, or individually and more deeply, with a therapist. In this study,
however, drama students practice TRE in groups facilitated by their
movement teacher to promote personal wellbeing and professional skills,
not as a form of therapy.
Practical implementation
The NSKI study plan includes weekly classes in TRE, which all students
are required to attend. Learning about, understanding and accepting men-
tally how the body reacts in stressful situations is an important part of
the training, a top-down approach. Research review shows that stress
may induce both beneficial and harmful effects (Yaribeygi et al. 2017).
Muscle tension, particularly in the face of danger is almost a reflex
reaction to stress, the body's way of guarding against danger, injury and
pain, and then release their tension when the stress passes. Positive
stress can heighten our senses and improve our performance with a given
task or assignment. However, when we experience stress too often or
for too long, or when the negative feelings overwhelm our ability to
cope, then problems will arise, possibly causing anxiety and depressive
disorders. Understanding the body's natural fight-or-flight response is one
way to help cope with such situations. Based on these facts, the course
topic includes different types of stress and basic neurophysiology
and neuropsychology mechanisms involved in the formation of stress
responses. Students have lectures on this theory before being introduced
to TRE through experience-based training.
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 5
The practical part, the bottom-up approach that follows, consists of
three sequences (Figure 1):
The first and second sequences contain exercises designed to fatigue
the major muscle groups of the legs and pelvis, like the earlier mentioned
psoas, (Figures 2,3). This invokes involuntary muscle tremors.
Letting the body surrender control allowing the body to shake is the
main part of TRE work and is happening during these sequences, espe-
cially when the pelvis is resting on the floor. The shaking then is the
body’s innate response to lower the tension level built up during the
exercises (Figure 4).
Figure 1. Basic TRE sequences.
Figure 2. Exercise designed to fatigue the major muscle groups of the legs and pelvis.
6C. S. Thommessen and M. Fougner
The students' access to tremors often increases after they have
become used to and familiar with the basic TRE exercises. Shaking can
last for 10–30 minutes.
In the final sequence, students end up in a resting position, noticing
changes and body sensations (Figure 5).
Afterwards they are encouraged to reflect on their work and share
experiences with their classmates and the instructor. By using their own
body awareness, the teacher facilitates empathy and understanding of the
student's processes through all sequences (Toivanen & Kaasinen 2013),
Figure 3. Exercise designed to fatigue the pelvic psoas muscles.
Figure 4. Letting the body surrender control allowing the body to shake.
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 7
observing and supporting the students both physically through different
types of touch and by creating a safe environment using the voice.
Focus group interviews
Reflecting on teaching and learning practices has become a staple activity
in undergraduate education to promote learning (Justice et al. 2006).
Regularly recording their reactions and thoughts about experiences pro-
vides students with a structured process that can help them to get the
most out of their examination of their activities (Boud et al. 1994). In this
study focus group interviews were undertaken using a semi-structured
interview guide, to obtain insights into how drama students, in a given
context, make sense of TRE. This material is drawn from the twelve stu-
dents who agreed to participate, six male and six female. Four of them
had three years of experience with acting studies and TRE, eight of them
had two years of experience.
Due to the first author’s role as the students’TRE instructor, the
second author conducted the semi-structured interviews. Questions
were “directed to the participants’experiences, feelings, beliefs and
convictions about the theme in question”with the following guidelines:
Describe any physical and/or emotional experience-based reactions
trigged by the TRE training sessions.
Describe some experience-based examples that demonstrate the
value of TRE training in personal and/or professional learning.
In a focus group design, social interaction between participants is the
core issue (Krueger & Casey 2000). Therefore, the moderator allowed
participants to talk to each other, ask questions and express doubts and
opinions, while having very little control over the interaction other than
Figure 5. Open attention noticing changes and body sensations.
8C. S. Thommessen and M. Fougner
generally keeping the participants focussed on the topic. Although some
were more active verbally, everyone in the groups contributed to the
overall group dynamic, without dominating the discussion time.
Findings and discussion
Three central categories emerged from the data that highlight the drama
students’experiences with TRE-technique:
1. Increased awareness of body and mind.
2. Skills performance under pressure.
3. Increased ability to create a character.
The drama students’experiences with the regular TRE training
sessions reflect processes ranging from an attitude of curiosity in bodily
experiences that facilitate self-awareness, to actively applying the
knowledge to overcome stage fright, and create a role. The presentation
of the results includes students’quotes.
Awareness of body and mind
The students showed an open-minded attitude towards their first
experiences with TRE. They were fascinated and surprised to find that
small and simple body movements provoked self-generated trembling, and
that this gave access to life events and an awareness of the impact these
have had on their lives, emotions and ability to concentrate.
Female student A:
Sometimes (during the TRE sessions) I find nothing, no tremors today.
I leave the room with the same feeling I had when I came. Some days your
body and mind however tell you that you should be elsewhere. I have
experienced this in TRE, that I have become aware of life events. It
is unlike any of the other school subjects. In TRE sessions, I have been able
to work with those events, despite the fact that I felt uncomfortable there
and then. I noticed in my body that something had been released, without
any strain, everything happening spontaneously.
The student tells about how doing TRE takes her mind back to some-
thing that happened earlier in life. The statement might indicate that she
had been exposed to her implicit memory by working on releasing
muscle tension. According to Berceli (2008), TRE tremors enable direct
access to the unconscious reptilian brain and facilitate changes that could
not otherwise be accomplished. However, others claim that this connec-
tion still is to be established and that several ongoing studies look into
that context (Gordon- Lennox 2017, p. 58).
The student describes a perception of a change occurring in the body after
working with memories from the past. This physical sensation is by Gendlin
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 9
(2007) called “abodyshift”, occuring when one is able to focus on what is
happening internally, and might lead to new insights into one’sself.
Students’reflections demonstrate an exploratory but at the same time
accepting attitude towards their physical and emotional reactions. Their
awareness of the living body and mind has different expressions and man-
ifestations as they notice their control mode shifting into a capacity sur-
rendering the need to control, in favour of a kind of non-judgmental
acceptance, and a sense of self, grounded in physical sensations in the
present moment (Mehling et al. 2012).
Female student B:
TRE is unique [ …] compared to meditation and so on where you focus
on your breathing [ …] TRE activates the body in such a good way, which
makes it very easy to be present in it. It is in fact a challenge to me that
my mind flies in its own direction, thinking about almost everything at the
same time. I think of everything I should have done.
The ability to sense the presence of self through body awareness,
as expressed by the student, is one of the aims of using TRE in
Method Acting. In a study by Coffey et al. referred to by Moore et al.
(2011), the “acceptance”component in mindfulness practice seemed
to correlate strongly with the ability to regulate negative affect.
However, we do not know how the students, who chose not to par-
ticipate in the study, relate to this. Research shows that body aware-
ness and attention to bodily reactions could be a challenge for those
who have experienced difficult and fearful life-situations (van der Kolk
et al. 2007).
Some students looked upon the regular TRE sessions as being a free
space in which they dared to expose themselves to each other. They
found it liberating allowing themselves to show feelings and strong reac-
tions and to have the opportunity to express and normalise feelings, both
alone and with others.
Female student C:
It was a new experience for me to accept the loss of body control, but
quite exciting at the same time. Crying, laughter and anger all came out in
TRE [ …] the class being a safe place to feel and express your emotions
with peers, with a teacher who knew what she was doing and where it
was permitted to react in different ways, to show emotions that should
not be displayed on the metro or in street. I did not know what TRE was
about, but I gradually began to understand [ …]. It was exciting. You just
have to sense how your body is reacting and try to see how this might be
connected with your mind set or with life events.
The student's quote confirms that the space feels safe enough for her to
be able to explore her emotions and body reactions. Her reflection on both
loss of body-control and feeling safe point to the importance of being guided
10 C. S. Thommessen and M. Fougner
by a skilled teacher who understands how to support the students and help
them remain within their comfortable level of stress-activation, their window
of tolerance (Siegel 2012) in which various intensities of psychophysiological
reactions can be accepted without overwhelming the stress-system. As men-
tioned above, some of the students might struggle with attention to bodily
reactions, even small ones. This could therefore be counter-productive;
a stress-reaction could create more tension, the opposite of the aim of TRE.
Ateacher’sroleindramaeducationis,amongotherthings,toinspirethe
students, to facilitate their work and to encourage them to find own creative
solutions to challenges. This would certainly include helping the students
building tools for self-regulation, so that they are able to find their own calm
space when things are overwhelming, both now as students and later
as professional actors.
Female student D:
A kind of collective consciousness around what is happening has grown. It
is legitimate to share in each other's tears, because we know or
acknowledge that we will experience the same. For that reason, tears are
okay, everyone feels the tears, everyone knows.
Performing the training in groups involves disclosure of emotions
both to oneself and to others. It also fosters the acknowledgement of
the privilege of being allowed to express strong emotions, and to be an
empathic fellow human. Rogers (1975)defines empathy as being able to
put one self into another's shoes, a kind of understanding of another
person’s thoughts and feelings. These skills are of great importance to
the actor.
The students were familiar with basic neurophysiology and neuropsych-
ology, understanding and accepting their classmates' processes. The expe-
rienced tension release, as reported by the students, was also connected
to emotional reactions.
Male student A:
Our comment to any outbursts of crying or anger is “Oh! That must have
been liberating!”This is now our immediate and automatic response when
emotions are exposed. I believe there is a correlation between the ability
to release emotions and being available to your own and others' emotions.
Research shows that the ability to take care of one's needs, improve-
ment in self-respect and respect of the rights of others was improved by
body awareness (Mehling et al. 2011). Through this, awareness of one's
own body as an actor can relate to being on stage with others and before
the public. The quote also shows the student’s understanding and accept-
ance of his own body reactions.
Some students learned that TRE provides an access to self-knowledge,
to being able to analyse their own patterns of thoughts and to see the
distinction between true and false self-behaviour.
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 11
Male student B:
I think that TRE was a kind of gate opener for me. When I experienced it
for the first time, this shaking in the body, I was suddenly very self-
conscious and questioned: Was this shaking due to my own efforts and
eagerness to be “good”or was it the body’s innate response to the
exercises? I tested this by trying hard to shake and I found out that
the effect was not nearly as dynamic. Then I told myself just to be in the
situation, continue to breathe, give in and try to accept what happens to
the body and what is beyond my control. This was exactly what happened
and I felt a sensation of release.
The student’s investigation through focussing attention on his bodily
experiences reveals an insight into the nature of movement as both an
internal and external phenomenon. The self-reflexivity displayed seems to
be deeply rooted in embodied experiences that are made accessible
through the bottom-up connection (Schore 1994). One might say that
this awareness makes explicit connections between self-development and
the practice of TRE as an approach. His expression of just being in the situ-
ation can be associated with a “non-judgemental mindfulness”(Mehling
et al. 2011, p. 1;), reflecting an orientation of curiosity, openness to
experience and acceptance.
Mastering presence and stage anxiety
Both Stanislavski and Strasberg suffered from exactly the same fear that
haunt all other actors, stage fright (Merlin 2016). To be fearful or anxious
is a very natural response to an important event, coming from the deeper
part of the brain, originally meant to protect us from danger. However,
how do we deal with this challenge?
As the findings above, the acceptance factor was, also reflected in the
students’stories concerning stage anxiety.
Female student B:
Before I started practicing TRE, I often was nervous before going on stage.
My legs shook and so did my voice throughout the breathing rhythm. These
nerves were far from welcome - oh no, here it comes again, I'm losing
control. Now, however, I dare to feel the tremor, and, it’s okay, because it is
just a matter of letting the body complete the trembling. It will disappear by
itself; it is nothing to worry about and it feels so liberating!
To acknowledge that stage anxiety exists, is part of the long-term strat-
egies that are recommended for actors (Merlin 2016). Likewise is the ability
to care less. The student describes her newly gained knowledge as liberating,
allowing her to be present, aware of the body and to let go in the meaning
of being able to put her-self “into a state of receptivity and surrendering to
spontaneous movement that arises”(Schmalzl et al. 2014,p.2).
12 C. S. Thommessen and M. Fougner
Another female student (E) sees that the technique can give her the ability
to reverse her habitual tendency to ruminate and focus on life’s trivialities:
Ihavenotyetfigured out how to use TRE in acting. I still think this is difficult.
Except when preparing, to become relaxed before going on stage. You cannot
use up your energy on worrying about paying your bills. You will then lose
focus, which does not work. Presence - that is what you strive for in acting.
You will not get anywhere without it and TRE has meant a lot to me in this.
Before going on stage, being physically and mentally relaxed, are of
great value to an actor to avoid stage fright (McGaw, Stilson, Clark, 2010;
Wang 2000; Merlin 2016). Lee Strasberg said, “Tension is the artist’s
greatest enemy”(McGaw, Stilson, Clark, 2010, p. 22). Strasberg, who
himself thought of stage fright as the most vulgar preoccupation of them
all, (Wang 2000, p.299) was pointing to relaxation as a means to avoid
stage fright to be able to concentrate.
The student expands the perspective by relating to her own personal-
ity, her need to process events in their life and the coping strategy for
anxiety attacks:
I am a person who struggles with high levels of stress and performance
pressure. I have been that way since I was a child. These are powerful and
deeply rooted emotions. It is part of my personality and very hard to get
rid of. It affects the entire day. However, TRE work was a great help when
I experienced stress attacks. I cannot wait to finish my training, to get
some distance from it and make it my own. It becomes excessively much
doing it at school and it is very school-like.
The understanding of bottom-up connection, autonomic reactions from
the body that influence the thinking part of the brain (Schore 1994), is
shown in this quote, as well as how this affects the student in both daily
life and under pressure. The student expresses how her whole nervous
system influences her when in alert-mode and how difficult it is to regulate
and to live with this. One of the most important tasks related to stage
fright, is to get to know what it is all about (Merlin 2016). That includes
inevitably getting to know oneself, as the student expresses. A study con-
ducted by Beaudoin (1999) looked at how body-centred approaches were
integrated into daily life. The participants mostly used the approaches to
work with anger, fear and distress and reported that one of the most help-
ful elements was the ability to let what they were feeling and what was
happening go, and to be able to be present with their bodily sensations.
Male student C:
I agree. There is no point practicing TRE with peer students who I know
and make me feel confident. The audience is an entirely different matter.
They assess your work, the performance and in this context, I need to get
rid of nervousness and tension, instead be open and free and have
confidence in my performance, being able to rely on my work, convince
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 13
them …to make the audience believe, …what should I say …the role
you are acting, performed in a make-believe world.
The student implements Strasberg’s principle (1987) of the importance
of being able to move freely without tension and in being able to transfer
all attention to the task and relates to the stressful situation in self-
presentation and role-playing. Freund (1990), who introduced the term
“dramaturgical stress”describes this phenomenon as a feeling of lower
social status in relation to the audience and the call for a “status shield”
as protection, referring to a term coined by the sociologist Arlie
Hochschield (1983, p.167), who describes how status serves to protect
individuals from the “displaced feelings of others”.
The students, as they get into the world of acting, demonstrate some
recognition of its connection to body awareness. They seem to realise
that being an actor requires an all over awareness to be able to concen-
trate on their performance, to help them determine their status in a
scene and thereby establish a position and the inherent requirements to
express the character’s whole being.
The third category is rooted in Method Acting classes. These draw on
the students’experiences of TRE, the aim being to evoke their emotions
to build a character by connecting to and entering into another charac-
ter’s mental state.
Creating a character
The effects of regular TRE exercise training have different expressions. A
common feature is that the insight those who practice TRE gain about their
own body tension serves as an incentive to break tension patterns. The
data reflects a general trend, in that students believe they have developed,
through these experiences, the ability to direct their gaze towards greater
depths within themselves, gaining access to memories of life events and
their effects on personality and functioning. Their experience coincides
with Strasberg (1987), who claims that an actor who is familiar with his/her
own past, feelings, emotions and thoughts will be in a better position to
make a character come alive. In fact, in Method Acting the actor is trained
to constantly use his/her own body, feelings and thoughts to make a charac-
ter come alive, therefore he/she needs to be in contact with them.
Female student B:
If I had not been practicing the exercises at school, then I would not have
been aware of my need to relax, to keep my shoulders down. When I'm
on the subway, for example, I have started reminding myself to relax and
become more aware of other people, to notice if they seem stressed [ …]
or simply what they are acting in that moment. I believe that when playing
a character or trying to get into a character, we can recreate characteristic
traits observed on the subway.
14 C. S. Thommessen and M. Fougner
The student’s embodied experience seems to bring to her a closer
awareness of self and others. The statement also reveals a strategy for
creating a character through observation of strangers. The quote reflects
what commonly is included in actors’repertoire strategies for the devel-
opment of characters, transposing from personal experiences and using
environmental resources (Bandelj 2003).
Female student A:
For me it's not just about being able to let go. It is just as much an awareness
that tensions are a part of me. They don't stop me, but I instead use them
actively in the scene work. Three years of practice has not resulted in the
absence of tension. However, I have become aware of the tensions, their
causes and what I can do to reduce the pain and how they prevent me from
breathing freely and cause muscle stiffness. I have learned not to be
completely flustered when being confronted by the situation. I used to have
many strange body sensations, experienced the body as taking over somehow
[…], during one actor training session I suddenly felt as though my body
failed me, and did not understand what was happening. I have now realized
how important it is to be able to stand in your own grounded presence. If
you are going to create a character with tensions or other characteristics and
history, you must acknowledge your own body and personal history.
Both of the latest statements indicate the students’understanding of the
psychophysiology of stress and that TRE can be used for more than reduc-
ing their bodily tensions. It seems that they have become aware of the value
of their own tensions in the make-up of their personality traits, developed
and shaped by their life history. recognising suppressed emotions and being
willing to let go by giving up control, is part of tension reduction. This is
both an emotional and a physical challenge, involving body awareness and
body trust. A study conducted by Nigh (2013) confirms drama students’
TRE training can bring about a heightened awareness as an altered state of
consciousness. The study examined former drama students’experiences
with practicing warm-up exercises originally introduced as a tool to calm
the nervous system, increase focus and reduce stress before rehearsals.
The findings showed that the students gained an additional and unexpected
benefit before rehearsals in that they “simply seemed to see and feel
differently”(Nigh 2013, p. 641). This perception may reflect the interplay
between mind and body, the feeling being accessed through images,
thoughts and the body, through the felt experience.
Female student C:
We are encouraged, in Method Acting, to draw on own experiences to
convey personal emotions to the character. This approach often, however,
appears as an intellectual work method. You strive to memorize certain
people or situations [ …]. What I like about TRE is the physical approach.
I experienced a bodily reaction at the beginning of the year. It was not so
great, but the reaction started a process that was [ …] I once had to have
a spinal tap carried out. I was sick for a long time. However, it has not
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 15
been in my thoughts since then. During one of the TRE training sessions, I
however experienced strong vibrations around the spine. Then the spinal
tap came forward again. I realized for the first time that the body
vibrations were a physical response to this event. I think TRE is all about
becoming conscious about the connection between my history and body. I
hope this is the knowledge that I somehow could use in my acting work
Her story reflects a prolonged stressful experience that she became
aware of through TRE training. The experience illustrates a “bottom up”
response from the body that is beyond the control of our consciousness
regulating cognitive functions (Schore 1994). Her story supports the
belief that earlier inaccessible painful experiences can be elicited through
TRE by memories and by thoughts essentially being cognitive functions.
Strasberg himself had a similar experience with an actor. After concluding
that both her tension and pain were the result of earlier experiences,
Strasberg says: “The release of those areas was essential for her to free
herself from mannerism and tension that interfered with her ability to
express herself on stage”(1987, p.97). However, at the same time, he
claimed that tension was not emotional (p.124-125), and pointed to the
disagreement among psychologists at that time, in the 1950s, concerning
what emotions really are (p. 113), ignoring the earlier mentioned James-
Lange theory of emotion. Recent development in scientific thinking (e.g.
Damasio 1999) helps us to reveal some of those uncertainties.
The students attribute TRE as a key tool in understanding the connec-
tion between the unconscious mind, emotions and bodily expressions. It
also helps them to understand how they can use this knowledge as a
source for building credible role characters.
Conclusion
The analysis of our students’TRE experience data yielded three main
themes; an increased self-awareness of body and mind, mastering pres-
ence and stage anxiety and an expanded repertoire within themselves
when creating a character. When asked to summarise the most import-
ant learning experiences from regular TRE group training sessions, the
students’engagement in the insights gained from the interaction between
body states and emotions is particularly pronounced. An important factor
is the experience of accepting exposure of their own and others' emo-
tions, thus creating a sense of a classroom community of caring. The self-
evoked muscular shaking process followed by a deep feeling of tension
release often evoked intense emotional reactions that aroused the stu-
dents’curiosity.
Their experiences were an incentive for exploring many connections
with their life history and everyday life. The realisation that they were able
to see a correlation acted as a springboard to Method Acting and was mani-
fested in the following ways. Accepting the TRE-induced muscle shaking
allowed students to experience that tension release was a consequence of
relinquishing control. This kind of insight seems to provide a sense of con-
trol, thus changing stage fright into greater confidence. Secondly, drawing
16 C. S. Thommessen and M. Fougner
on personal experiences of the awareness of body and mind appeared to
improve the ability to evoke realistic emotions when working with building
a character and creating a role in their Method Acting.
In our view, this study provided insight into ways that TRE can help
improve quality and efficiency in Method Acting and the skills training that
allow students directly to apply their experiences. It contains material from
12 out of 24 students, giving support to the idea that TRE is a relevant
tool for drama students' personal and professional development. However,
half of the students chose not to participate in the study. There may be
various reasons for this. In their quotes, the students expresses several
experiences with TRE that might be challenging for others. To name a few,
we would point to their experience of loss of body control, a group con-
text in which own emotions becomes apparent to others, and peoples dif-
ferent needs for self-reflections. Some students might also find it difficult to
put into words their own emotional bodily experiences.
We believe that TRE can be implemented as a kind of movement-based
embodied contemplative practice by minding the following points. Firstly,
by supporting the student's ability to stay on an accepted level of activa-
tion within their window of tolerance to help them to reach new terri-
tory. Secondly, gaining new insight in both self and others by sharing
experiences, using notebooks and learning new material facilitating
growth. Thirdly, TRE might not be a tool for everyone. However, a mind-
ful introduction to this approach will help the students to experience
themselves whether TRE is the right tool for them or not.
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Cathrine Scharff Thommessen holds a MA in Pedagogy (2017), University of Oslo.
The topic of her Master thesis was stress and bodily regulations in young boys in prison. She
is the first author of a book recently published at a renowned academic publishing house
aimed at educators and therapists about the importance of dealing with their own stress
reactions in trauma informed care. She has diverse theoretical and practical background in
the medical and somatic field, as well as a BA in dance and pedagogy. She has been
working as a supervisor in stress regulation at NSKI University College since 2011.
Marit Fougner is associate professor at Oslo Metropolitan University College of Applied
Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences; Department of Physiotherapy. Her lecture topics are:
qualitative research methods, research ethics, evidence based practice, manual skills training.
Fields of research and research topics: Learning models bridging theory and practice, inter
professional education, client- centered physiotherapy, cultural competency in physiotherapy,
somatocognitive therapy (SCT) for chronic pelvic pain in women, aging, health and welfare.
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 19
