José Angel Santana, Ph.D. teaches a daily practice that significantly improves the quality of human interactions in life and art, to serve both the professional actor and non-actor needs for clear communication, high performance and personal effectiveness. This daily practice improves communication skills, self-confidence, personal initiative, and the quality of human interactions and relationships for the performing artist, in business, and in one's own personal life.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Friday, March 21, 2014
As some of you may already know, my life changed when I began working with adolescents with City@Peace in Santa Barbara, California years ago. This is a message I received today from Paul Griffin, founder of the National City At Peace Organization, which is known today as The Possibility Project.
"Our foster care film KNOW HOW is competing for Project of the Year on IndieWire! Can you take a minute to vote for us? And can you share the link with your friends and get them to vote? We will need a lot of support to win. To vote, you click on the link below, vote for KNOW HOW, input your e-mail, and then confirm your vote when they send you an e-mail. If we win, it would be a HUGE help for our project!"If there is anything I believe in, and would support it is this project that is truly dedicated to helping adolescents who need the most help of all: Foster Care Children.
Please vote for this project: http://www.indiewire.com/vote-for-project-of-the-year
Please share this message!
Thank you.
Love
Jose
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
"LISTENING AND SOMETHING YOU REALLY FEEL IS HAPPENING BETWEEN PEOPLE" --- THE ART OF CONNECTING
Just before the 3:40 min. point in this video, which is extraordinary in its entirety, Peter Brook talks about how to avoid boredom in the drama: "In the theatre if there isn't life going on, in one subtle way or another… listening and something you really feel is happening between two people..." - Peter Brook
Saturday, March 08, 2014
Friday, March 07, 2014
Thursday, March 06, 2014
Elephant Empathy: what if we humans paid this much attention to one another?
What if we humans paid this much attention to one another?
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Saturday, March 01, 2014
Friday, February 28, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Monday, February 17, 2014
José Angel Santana: Empathy and The Art of Connecting
"Acting should be terminal. That's what Stella told me; that's what Kazan also believed. If something big isn't at stake--if everything isn't at stake--why bother? Why show up? Why apply anything to it at all? Someone is out there dreaming and asking questions and wondering why he was born. Some guy is out there with a father who beats him and tells him he's a loser with a lousy dick and no chance in hell of amounting to anything. Well, what do I tell him? How do I reach out to him and tell him a story? There's a girl out there who doesn't have a mother to teach her how to take care of a house or a man or herself, and what do I tell her? What's the story for her? It's in the text somewhere; it's in my heart and my mind somewhere, and I spend all my time and energy and love trying to find it, trying to transmit it. That's what I think acting should be. You honor the playwright's words, and you find a character out of those words, and you marry the director in your heart and you follow him and pray he follows you." -- Marlon Brando/Interview with James Grissom/1990/ from James Grissom's Follies of God
