High quality, affordable training is essential to ensuring we address the balance between talent and industry access. Both Feet is dedicated to ensuring that talented actors regardless of background, history or obstacles have equal access to high quality training. To help people understand why we offer so many scholarships... Meet Patrycja Dynowska. A brilliant and talented actor and scholarship recipient to the Barbara Houseman's Deep Dive Voice Retreat.
When I first came across Both Feet and their very generous offering of scholarships for working-class actors, I thought it was too good to be true… until I was awarded one!
When you’re a migrant artist from a working-class family, it often seems that you have one shot at doing things related to your career.
There’s little to no room for mistakes and slip-ups. Your choice needs to be the “right” one from the get-go. We all know that life and, most particularly, careers in the creative industries never work in a linear way. There’s a lot of “dancing” involved, the infamous - one step forward, two steps back. Nevertheless, we keep going, all too careful to choose training opportunities wisely and carefully so as not to “waste money”. There’s a lot of pressure in such a simple activity of choosing and hence the failure hurts deeper and harder.
Training scholarships are a blessing for anyone coming from a less fortunate background. They take the pressure of choosing “wisely” and “correctly” off and allow one to fully focus on the learning journey. Being awarded a half scholarship for the 7-day ‘Deep Dive Voice Retreat’ with Barbara Houseman, was the most generous gift I could imagine receiving this year. This retreat couldn't have come at a better time for me. I do believe things happen for a reason and that it all aligned so perfectly (even with having to come back to London to shoot a commercial job in the middle of the retreat - #actorslife).
Prior to coming to Bodlondeb, I was a walking bundle of stress, so much so that it felt like I was constantly out of depth.
This retreat helped me find my feet again, begin healing old wounds, learn to breathe (both practically and metaphorically), challenge outdated beliefs and through that start believing in myself and my abilities more. I believe this shift will help me find success in my acting career and life in a broader sense.
Good things have already started happening!
From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU 🙏
To find out how you can help enrich our industry visit our donation page to get involved. We're so grateful for every donation because we believe this industry should be as diverse as the world it reflects.
If you want to apply for a Both Feet Training scholarship... We welcome you to apply here! Nobody does it alone. Everyone needs a bit of help and we're here for you!