About
WHAT IS PEM?
PEM is an innovative acting method based on the biological emotional process. It provides performers with a direct, effortless and repeatable access to authentic emotions on a purely physical basis, without recourse to personal experiences or emotional memory. Its organic and fast approach grants security, flexibility and reliability in the professional careers of actors, singers, dancers and other performers and works with an unheard-of simplicity and effectiveness in creating emotional depth and expressiveness.
This approach allows actors to connect to emotions beyond their personal experience and provide them with a wider range of emotional expression.
A tool that allows actors to explore acting beyond the personal, historical and cultural scope of our modern society, it enables an understanding and awareness of the human condition that is bigger than our personal experience, thus granting actors more versatility and depth at the same time.
This fundamental acting tool, ensures the skillful, exact and instant use of authentic emotions.
WHERE DID PEM COME FROM?
In 2017, PEM was brought over from Germany to Australia and has since become a household name among Australian film and theatre actors. Originally synthesised by Stephan Perdekamp and his associates, PEM was widely researched and utilised in German theatre and applied in a number of other areas including, Theatrical experiments helped define the applicability and effectiveness of the method in the Performing Arts. The process and its technical and educational aspect was repeatedly reviewed by psychologists and therapists to create a method that is safe, user-friendly and free from exploiting the artistic soul.
HOW DOES PEM WORK?
This approach is based on the biological connection of key movement patterns (emotions) to organic impulses in the body.
It teaches to access those – previously unconscious – organic impulses, enabling the performers to access their true emotional system directly and consciously.
Additionally, a wide range of exercises are taught to clear up unconscious emotional blockages in order to give the actor access to the basic biological function of emotions and an artistic control over the internal emotional processes.
CAN I BE SURE PEM WORKS FOR ME?
PEM is an approach to an innate biological system which is the basis of all human communication and acting. This innate biological system works continuously whether or not you are aware of it. PEM has been tried by thousands of people from 6 continents in over 55 countries and, although a method in its own right, has proven to be complementary to all other acting methods. Qualified instructors guarantee safe and effective learning.
In 2013, the effects of PEM were scientifically supported in a study funded by the Federal Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth in Austria. The results were presented to members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna who acknowledged the findings.