Tony De Maeyer
Belgium / Germany
In 1996 he met Gennadi N. Bogdanov in Berlin (lecturer for Biomechanics at the former GITIS in Moscow). This is the beginning of an extremely intensive collaboration that enables Tony De Maeyer to adopt Meyerhold’s Biomechanics in practice.
He is probably one of the few actors worldwide who has achieved the perfect assimilation of the principles of Biomechanics in his acting, both on stage and in film. For many years, De Maeyer has been teaching and leading Biomechanics workshops at theater schools in Germany and throughout Europe, such as the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts (Hochschule für Schauspielkunst „Ernst Busch“) in Berlin, University of the Arts Berlin (UdK), the Academy of Performing Arts Baden-Württemberg (AdK), the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Künste Stuttgart (HMdK) or the Anton Bruckner University Linz, as well as at private drama schools in Germany.
As a Biomechanics expert, he has been involved in state theaters (Volksbühne Berlin, Theater Aachen, Theater Bonn, Theater Münster, Theater Heidelberg…) as well as in theater ensembles in order to provide artistic support for theater productions. He trains the actors, familiarizes them with the principles of Biomechanics and stages body and movement. He worked among others with Christian von Treskow, Dimiter Gottschef, Luise Voigt, Darijan Mihajlovic a.o. De Maeyer has set himself the task of freeing Meyerhold’s Biomechanics from their overly dogmatic historical context and developing them further as a modern acting method. In addition to the work of K. Stanislavski, he considers Biomechanics to be extremely relevant and indispensable for the craft of the actor.
As an actor, De Maeyer received the Best Actor Award at the Brussels International Film Festival in 1993.
