Fall classes, why should I?

A post by Jenna Wilcox, PAA Artistic Director.

The summer has been a blast! You have met and worked with new teachers, made new friends and grown in your confidence and abilities. You’re good, right? Well, not really. The reality of the arts is you must keep moving to grow as an artist and if you aren’t growing, you aren’t moving. The skills required for any art are skills that take a lifetime to cultivate and perfect. As performing artists, we must keep working.

One major component of acting, singing and dancing is muscle memory. Each one of these skills requires a different set of muscle groups to do them well. Just as athletes train year-round, so must we. The voice requires reminders of proper position, breath support and a good workout regularly to maintain the status quo. If you want to get better, you must train the voice. As young people, your voices are moving and changing. To move through the transition, you need to work those vocal chords in a proper and healthy way. In addition, the body faces special challenges as you grow. Dancing is a great way to build muscle tone and improve your core strength. Learning new steps creates new connections in your brain, making you smarter too! As actors our tools are our bodies and voices. We must maintain them and work with them as they grow. We should be working on something new all the time. An audition monologue (or a second contrasting one if you already have one ready) is a great place to start. New auditions are always popping up and you rarely get much notice. You must be ready with your best.

You know already that PAA is a terrific place to learn new skills. Now you know you can continue to grow and build on what you already know. Join us this fall! Get your artist workout!