INDIA, August 7, 2014 (Russia & India Report): After seeing the effects of yoga on his students, Konstantin Stanislavsky (Russian actor and theater director) quickly started using it even more: in actors’ trainings in the Second Studio (which was established in 1916) and the Opera Studio (founded in 1918), and for the work of the actors in the MAT (Moscow Art Theatre). Stanislavsky’s notebooks from 1919-1920 contain many notes on the application of Hatha Yoga, together with Swedish gymnastics, exercises on rhythm and voice training in his classes.
The most detailed connection between Stanislavsky’s system and yoga is found in notes to the classes with the MAT artists (1919). Rose Whyman, a British scholar of Stanislavsky’s work, has pointed out that the notes contain a hidden synopsis of the part of the book “Hatha Yoga” on prana. Although Stanislavsky does not refer directly to pranayama, an aspect of yoga that teaches the skills of managing prana, his notes testify to serious study of concepts of yoga practice. He widely used pranayama exercises to develop actors’ creative well-being.
Stanislavsky communicated breathing principles to the actors and explained the connection between correct breathing and attention: “Calm breathing–healthy thoughts, healthy body, healthy feelings, easy to focus; wrong rhythm of breathing–disturbed psyche, feelings of pain and total attention deficit.” These thoughts, of course, are closely connected to yoga’s tenets of pranayama: consciousness, the body and emotions are linked by the thread of breath, and the ability to breathe correctly is paramount for a person’s spiritual ascent.
More at ‘source’ on Stanislavsky’s methods and their impact on modern acting technique.