Acting for Life ADVANCED | Rotterdam

Welcome to AFL Advanced — Acting for Life: Advanced

Dates: 19th of September - 7th of November / Every Saturday / 14:30 - 17:00 

Acting for Life: Advanced is the next level of AFL training, designed for participants who already have a foundation in acting practice and want to go deeper into human behaviour, communication, creativity, and transformation.

Building on the core principles of Acting for Life, the Advanced course moves from basic presence and expression towards a deeper understanding of how we act, what we want, how we influence others, how we respond to circumstances, and what exists beneath the words we speak.

Led by Juliana Berezhnaya, theatre and opera director and educator, and co-led by Eleonora Shafran, an intuitive and visceral actress and acting coach, the course combines professional acting techniques with practical exploration of behaviour, communication, and creative freedom — both on stage and in real life.

Course Format

• 8 classes
• 2.5 hours per session
• Practice-first approach
• Led in English
• Small group
• Individual attention
• Advanced-level training

Each session combines:
training → exploration → applied practice → feedback

Course Structure

Voice, Speech & Rhetoric

Deeper work with voice, articulation, speech, expression, rhetoric, and the ability to communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact.

Attention, Improvisation & Creativity

Developing spontaneity, imagination, creative thinking, flexibility, and the ability to respond freely and precisely in the moment.

Emotions & Emotional Freedom

Expanding emotional range, responsiveness, expression, and the ability to move between different emotional states without losing presence and control.

Objective, Action & Subtext

Exploring objective, intention, action, circumstances, context, and subtext — understanding what we really want and what we are doing to achieve it. 

Psychology of Communication

Working with interaction, listening, relationships, status, influence, boundaries, and verbal and non-verbal communication.

The 12 Archetypes of Human Behaviour

Exploring twelve archetypal behavioural patterns as different ways of acting, communicating, responding, leading, connecting, and influencing others.

Transformation: Animality & Object Work

Using physical transformation, observation, animality, and object-based work to move beyond habitual behaviour and expand expressive and creative range.

Real-Life Situations & Psychodramatic Practice

Exploring real-life situations through theatrical re-enactment, role work, different perspectives, and alternative ways of acting and communicating.

 Who Is This Course For?

Acting for Life: Advanced is especially designed for:

• Acting for Life graduates ready to continue their training on a deeper level
• Participants with previous structured acting training
• Artists and performers wishing to expand their expressive and behavioural range
• Professionals interested in advanced communication, presence, creativity, and human behaviour

If you have not completed Acting for Life, we recommend looking through the AFL foundation topics. If work with body, voice, attention, imagination, emotions, contact, and improvisation already feels familiar, you may be ready to join.

Priority is given to AFL alumni.

AFL Advanced can also be taken in combination with THEATRE LaB, where these tools can be applied within a real creative process leading to a performance in front of a live audience.

Techniques We Work With

AFL Advanced draws on a broad range of professional acting and theatre practices, including the Russian psychological school and Stanislavski system, Michael Chekhov’s psychophysical and imaginative approach, and the expressive, physical theatrical tradition associated with Roman Viktyuk’s school.

These influences are combined with our own directorial, acting, and teaching practices, rather than following one fixed methodology. The work brings together psychological, physical, imaginative, and improvisational tools to explore human behaviour, archetypes, rhetoric, communication, transformation, and psychodramatic theatrical practice.

The focus remains practical: expanding behavioural and expressive range, developing creative freedom, and learning to act and communicate with greater awareness, precision, flexibility, and presence.

Website: artplatforma.eu

Instagram: @artplatforma.eu