Meade Andrews

Directional Thinking and the Art of Group Teaching

Experiential learning within a group setting has been part of my training, performance, and teaching history, as a dancer, actor, and Alexander Technique teacher. As a master teacher of the work, Marjorie Barstow has been a primary influence on my group teaching methods. She consistently inspired a deeply rooted experience in the work for her students, primarily within a goup setting. Her teaching, and my own movement background, influenced my creation of a series of thematic movement etudes, designed to enhance the learning potential within a group class. An enlivened sense of self within the group, via these etudes, coupled with a shared learning experience, can enhance individual responsiveness to the subtleties of the "hands-on" Alexander work.

Alexander defined his core directions as a "blue print" for awakening a deeper realm of coordination, known as the primary control. Barstow defined this same process as the "sequence of directional thinking." Through various movement etudes, we will explore Alexander's core directions and Barstow's defining phrase. And together, we will illuminate group teaching: an art form blending the use of our three-dimensional self in a three-dimensional space with the teacher-student duet, encircled by the community of a group class. 


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Meade Andrews currently resides in Boca Raton, Florida, where she joined the faculty of the graduate acting program at Florida Atlantic University in 2002. She maintains a private practice in the Alexander Technique in Florida, and also travels to teach in New York and Washington, DC, where she continues to present workshops at the Studio Theatre, her professional base for over 15 years. Meade has been teaching the Alexander Technique for 22 years, and also works as an acting coach and movement consultant for theatre productions.

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