Africa-Press – Botswana. Galaletsang ‘Gina’ Koffman, a South African actress spent Saturday sharing insights of the showbiz industry with some of Botswana’s aspiring actors.
Koffman, known for her role in the then popular telenovela, The River, providing budding actors with essential skills, focusing on acting, text interpretation and performances. This initiative reflected Koffman’s commitment to nurturing talent and a love for the performing arts, especially among emerging artists, who are presented with numerous opportunities of mentorships and masterclasses to perfect and grow their craft.
Addressing the issue of performances, Koffman advised attendees on points to consider when preparing for performance. She said such activities as vocal-warm and physical warm-ups were essential for diligent performance. “Vocal warm-ups help explore range and vocal ladder, relieve throat and neck tension as well as relax jaws and mouth, prepare actors’ voices for the day,” Koffman said, adding that one should also explore different breathing techniques and the use of diaphragm.
She said physical warm-ups were designed to force crew to get moving, engage with one another and loosen themselves up physically and mentally to prepare their bodies to be able to maintain the stamina during performances, and to also feel good.
Also, Koffman said actors needed to put in 10 000 hours of work and practice in order to perfect their craft.
Made popular by writer Malcolm Gladwell, “Outliers: The Story of Success,” the theory of 10 000 hours states that in order to become a success in a field, one must put in 10 000 hours of work and experience towards the craft. “Once you do that, you are considered an expert,” said Koffman, who has been in the acting industry for 17 years now.
Koffman said to put in 10 000 hours of work, one has to be extremely dedicated where often times they needed to abandon plans and focus on fulfilling their 10 000 hours.
Investing in acting classes, being an extra in films and/or sets, attending workshops on acting skills and ethics, investing in masterclasses, she said could be used to work toward the 10 000 hours of work before actually attaining any big break as an actor.
However, as interesting as the 10 000-hour rule is, Koffman said the number of hours one put may not be important if the work ethic was not of quality. She described a performer as a vessel delivering a narrative that mirrored life’s reality.
“Therefore, as actors we have to go above and beyond to bring the character to life. My goal as a trained performer is to analyse the narrative for better understanding of the character’s environment,” she said.
Explaining her character, Beauty in The River, Koffman said she had to define the role and build it from the ground up, dissecting all components of her life; “I only knew that my character Beauty was this flamboyant and outspoken character who worked in a hair and beauty salon and later owned the salon.” Therefore, she said to play and deliver the character efficiently, she had to research and have a better understanding of a hairdresser and beauty salon, unpacking the character’s psychology, which she said helped with motivating character choices.
“In the South African industry, it is extremely rare that we find readily established characters, the actor knows more than the character,” she said.
Koffman said as an actor you create a bio of the character, and she also advised that to play your character well you should not judge it. She said as an actor it was her role to play against the norm and stereotype, and said her goal to create characters that are more than one dimensional.
“It is my duty to make the audience member believe that for that moment I am the character.”
Koffman said it was important to create an efficient working environment for crew and understand the trinity of actor, performer and character.
She said, as an actor it meant knowing, respecting and understating the ensemble work going into the production as ‘it makes it easier for the production team to work with me as I can act upon command thus saving time in pre and post-production.’
Meanwhile, Koffman, who is an interdisciplinary creative, said it was crucial to have multiple income streams to avoid relying on one.
Streams of income such as teaching, voice over work, theatre, commercials, drama therapy, comedy and presenting are some of those that Koffman have as her plan B and she advised aspiring actors to explore many others in order to keep their cash flows active.
She also advised them to maintain healthy relationships with their agencies and agents for amicable engagements with their earnings as well as usage of multiple fees for career advancements.
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