about John Markland
The focus of my approach to acting, is personalization and unblocking of emotional walls.
What is that?
If you are feeling stagnant or blocked in an area of your life, relationship, or work and are not growing as free as you would like, then these are the areas I ask you to dig in, expose and reintegrate with/through your character. These places often have the richest soil even though it may feel the opposite. I want you to feel bold and instinctive in your choices, feeling the work from a personal place rather than an external goal orientated one. The destination is original work with risk taking from authentic intentions.
You will gradually feel your work move beyond a performance and into an experience.
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“STATE OF PLAY”
John approaches the work, and artists, with a sincere belief; there is no separation between life and art. Our personal evolution, as a human beings, is intrinsically connected to the development of our art. This symbiotic relationship allows experiences from life to enrich our art and discoveries through our art to further our self-awareness.
Children explore and discover themselves and their world through play. It is a form of translation between the conscious and unconscious - the Ying and Yang. Perhaps, undivided, in the earliest stages, our consciousness separates and continues to grow apart as we age. So, as wounded healers, as storytellers, imagining metaphorical, symbolic worlds and birthing them into reality, we must some how encourage that state of communion our conscious and unconscious mind once had. The two minds must dance, and dance in balance, for then magic happens, paths clear, faith rises and our art transcends, allowing our humanity to connect to others.
Another way of looking at it, we are fragmented selves and our goal is to become whole. This suggests the process of reunification itself is fragmented or interdisciplinary. Body, breath, psychology, emotions and dreams are all strands of a web we must weave. The pains, shames, self-sabotaging, addictions, deceits and many of the darker wounds we carry could be said to be the side effects of this fragmentation. Allowing, forgiving, exposing, acknowledging, accepting and expressing therefore would be part of the healing necessary to re-integrate.
This approach to living and acting is not just restorative; it’s redemptive.
We rediscover a State of Play.
Current workshops/classes
Power
If you feel like you are fighting for it, pushing against something, exhausted, so much effort you question if it can happen then you are not acting/living from your Power. Power and Force are on opposite sides of a seesaw and once you control this you get to experience the lightness and height of power rather than the weight and immobility of force.
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Courage
My approach is to conjure emotions and beliefs to change their trajectory through acting. I guide you towards self-reckoning moments where-in you have a split second to find the courage to accept, acknowledge and alter or to stay the path. These real moments (life affirming/life altering) bring such riveting authenticity to any character in any moment that all of us watching are woken up. A challenge of courage is shared.
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MASTERS CLASS
My goal is to connect your life to your craft so that every “role” means something to you – that. you have “personal stakes in the scene”. The class will advance your character development, establish a real point of view, create access to self-permission and most importantly, engage intuition-led choice and action.
WORKSHOP
Jeremy Allen White
John sees me, my character, and the story I'm trying to tell all at once. This allows a complete confidence in rooms and on camera that I don't think I've been able to find before. There are no promises made with John other than honesty, permitting me as an actor to explore scary places within myself in safety. I feel that I have a guide and am not alone in this. John wishes to help me shape characters, tell stories and I believe he is truly devoted to helping me shape my career the way I want it, and beyond that help me live my life the way I want to. This is invaluable in a teacher, a friend.
Lewis Pullman
Part of Markland’s approach has a beautifully tactical practicality to it, like building a fence: post by post by post. The other part of his work is courageously nebulous, leaving room for the divine, like a poetic conjurer of an alternate spirit. It’s an intoxicating process that pushes me into corners of myself I hadn’t considered pointing the flashlight at. Markland has helped time and time again get to that place of a free-fall drunken possession of character. I count myself beyond fortunate to have him as a mentor and a friend.
“A number of the younger dream work practitioners, such as Elizabeth Kemp, Kim Gillingham, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, and actor/director John Markland...as well as Sandra’s daughter and fellow acting coach, Greta, all claim Seacat as their mentor.”
Anna Sawai
I met John when I was in desperate need of finding my confidence, and I feel so lucky to say that through our work together, I have been able to regain it. He has helped me explore every aspect of myself. The interesting, and the ordinary. Guiding me to confront parts of my past I didn’t even realize I had buried, to better understand myself and integrate it into character work. One of the most important lessons he’s taught me is that there’s no right or wrong, but only being truthful. Coming from a culture that places a lot of value on others’ views, this was transformative for me. He creates a safe space, free of judgement, and pushes me beyond what I think is my limit – because he sees me. And there’s nothing more powerful than that.
Eric Dane
John has me doin shit I think is crazy, may not connect with the material in the linear world - and like a soufflé, all of a sudden, I have a character… I connect to the material in a more meaningful and substantive way.