In October, 1971, Moshe Feldenkrais came to the United States to give seminars in body training at the Esalen Institute, at Carnegie Mellon, and at the School of the Arts at New York University. The interest shown in his work by these institutions reflects an important change of emphasis in the area of movement training for actors.

The choice, put simply, is between training the body to perform skillfully as a well-exercised, aesthetically pleasing physical instrument, and freeing the body of its habitual tensions and programmed patterns of behavior so that it can respond uninhibitedly to impulse, and genuinely reflect individual imagination and emotion.

There is a trend away from the use of the formal disciplines of ballet, modern dance and classical mime as exercises. Actors are turning to Yoga classes, are being Rolf’d, are taking Alexander classes and T’ai Chi.