Flloyd Kennedy

Flloyd Kennedy is an Australian actress, singer, director, and voice coach.

Eleven years ago, as a mature-aged yet deeply insecure performer, I began a journey of self-discovery under the tutelage of an extraordinary teaching artist, Ira Seidenstein. Ira has not only helped me develop my craft and acquire new skills and techniques, he has shown me how to appreciate what I already had, how to honour my life's journey and to continue to experience it with honesty and clarity.

The training in different aspects of clowning each year, in the Brisbane-based Quantum Theatre – Slapstick to Shakespeare intensive workshops, has drawn me into a community of passionate performers from all over the world and every possible genre and style, including clowns and dancers, circus performers and classical actors, acrobats and rodeo entertainers, opera singers and improvisers – and occasionally academics with a thirst for knowledge and experience of live performance. These are the people who are attracted to Ira's idiosyncratic, challenging and stimulating work.

I.S.A.A.C. has grown into a formal discipline with an eternally evolving, revolutionary heart. The Four Articulations, incorporating Core Mechanics, which I first experienced in a production of Pericles directed by Ira, give me the framework within which I build my daily practice and maintain my creative health. I teach them to students so that they may experience directly the power and potential of their bodies as they begin to explore their emotional and intellectual power as performers. The principles embedded within the exercises are the essential principles of fine acting, they touch upon the very core of the actor's humanity, and provide the space where they may each revel in it, and share it generously.

I continue to train with Ira whenever I can; he is my mentor and my coach. Most recently he coached me for a performance as The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, helping me to discover hidden secrets of naughtiness and boldness in the character – and in myself. What a journey!

Ira Seidenstein