The primary challenge any actor faces is how to be present. When we remark on an actor’s ‘stage presence’ or ‘screen presence’ we are paying tribute to that quality. It is a quality you can’t reason your way into, or fake, or make happen willfully. It’s also a quality you can’t find if you are sitting in your head. Presence is the quality of a fully embodied intelligence. Philip Shepherd is an international expert on embodiment. He is also an actor. Unusually, his experience spans East and West. He has studied classical Japanese Noh Theatre, Kathakali, Suzuki techniques and Butoh, and has trained in Western techniques in England, Europe and North America. He has also played lead roles on stages in London, New York, Chicago, Hong Kong and Toronto. The scope and range of these experiences helped Philip develop a system of practices that enable people to experience and master embodiment for themselves – a system he calls The Embodied Present Process, or TEPP. Most people generally feel that they are stuck too much in their heads, and yearn to reunite with the body’s profound intelligence. TEPP actually shows them how to do that. The workshop Philip teaches worldwide grew out of his acclaimed book, New Self New World. Philip also, by invitation, teaches workshops for actors – workshops unlike anything else being offered. When the actor’s intelligence is liberated into the body, it becomes whole. In that place of wholeness, self-consciousness is lost, and the actor awakens – sensationally, viscerally, sensitively – to the world of the character. In short, the actor becomes present with a clarity that is evident to everyone.
