Theatre Research in Canada, Vol. 27, 2006, No. 1. This article presents the hypothesis that sophisticated psychophysical training is vital for the development of the creative relationship between the performer and the director. Using a fragment of original performance and with reference to training practices drawn from the Chinese martial arts this presentation explains how the author and his collaborator use psychophysical training to facilitate the creation “theatrical opposition.” Originally a live lecture/demonstration, the article is supplemented by numerous illustrations of practical examples of original performance and Chinese martial arts training.

Jan Fabre (Antwerp, 1958) is one of the creative minds of the so-called ‘Flemish Wave’ in the performing arts of the 1980s, a generation of directors, choreographers, actors and dancers who have developed a highly individual language on stage, breaking through the purist boundaries of theatre, opera, dance and performance art. Fabre, who started his career as a performance artist (1976–1981), was especially interested in working with and from ‘the harsh reality’ of his own body, thereby exploring what he has termed physiological performing. From his desire to create a performative language that takes the body and its physical sensory apparatus as the main instrument, he has developed a practice-based method through which to train his company of performers. This articles underscores how his physiological training method can be a relevant and enriching addendum to the training of contemporary actors, dancers and performers of various educational backgrounds. This claim is supported by going in depth into the specificity of Fabre’s training method and analysing how it reformulates the classic paradox of acting (as described amongst others by Aristotle and Diderot) via the introduction of a ‘performance art quality’, or what Fabre calls the transition between act and acting. A selection of exercises is also illustrated by means of the underlying performative principles, such as ‘spacing’, ‘anatomical awareness’, ‘transformation’ and ‘duration’. The article concludes by formulating some arguments in order to pinpoint the relevance of Fabre’s training method within the broad field of contemporary performance training.

The term ‘psychophysical’ in relation to acting and performer training is widely used by theatre scholars and practitioners. Konstantin Stanislavsky is considered to have been an innovator in developing an approach to Western acting focused on both psychology and physicality. The discourse encompasses questions of practice, of creativity and emotion, the philosophical problem of mind–body from Western and Eastern perspectives of spirituality. In this article, Rose Whyman attempts to uncover what Stanislavsky meant by his limited use of the term ‘psychophysical’ and suggests that much of the discourse remains prone to a dualist mind–body approach. Clarification of this is needed in order to further understanding of the practice of training performers. Rose Whyman is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham. She researches the science of actor training and is the author of The Stanislavsky System of Acting (Cambridge, 2008) and Stan...

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In the field of performative research, research-through practice has been essential to the broadening and deepening of the creative process through the investigative inquiry of performance. In this field, performance is driven by a search for knowledge and a more profound understanding of the processes at play from a performative perspective. It becomes didactic, inducing a change of perception. Performance, or embodying the creative process, allows a performer to centre themselves in a dynamic, collaborative space. The performative creative process is unique in its reliance on other bodies to complete a project, be it other performers, materials, venues, audio-visual media and projections, or more traditionally-oriented creators or directors. A performer is not an isolated subject, but integrated into a larger whole, thus markedly changing their performative identity, relating them to their context and situation. This is not a mere adaptation to one’s surroundings, but a synergy. As an individual, they are changed by the context in which they are performing. This further develops a performer’s knowledge and skillset, thus enabling them to contribute more ‘tools’ to future performances. But what does this mean for the non-performer? How do non performative creative processes benefit from research through-practice and performative research? How do non performers deepen their understanding of creative processes through performing and gain new insights into their fields of interest? How do they increase their abilities of self-assessment and further their experiential knowledge of a given task? At the University of Navarra (Spain), Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura y Diseño (ETSAUN), Dr. Sef Hermans worked with 36 fourth year Design students in his class, “Scenography, a Creative and Performative Guide to Performance and Stage Design.” In small groups, students designed and performed their own modern scenography based on 19th century operas in a performative trailer. Alongside the benefits of collaborative experience, the class allowed students to explore aspects of design from a performative perspective. They gained insight about design functionality and, crucially, design performativity: the relationship between aesthetic, performer and object/material. We consider such projects which explore these new didactic forms of theatre, music and other creative performative arts in the context of Dr. Hermans’ class and published case-studies pertaining to the benefits in multidisciplinary performative processes for non-performers. The article explores the adaptability of this methodology to other non-performative professions or endeavours. We investigate the benefits of non performer experience of kinetic play, the connection between action and creativity; the dynamism of collaborative performance practices; emergence, the unexpected outcomes of collaborative or contextual interaction; and the use of an individual’s less-developed creative pathways.

This book, The Dancing Word presents a systemic and phenomenological description of a contemporary intercultural theatre practice. The product of over eighteen years of embodied research by the author, this volume offers a blueprint for both training and collaborative performance creation that integrates the best of western laboratory theatre with the practice and ontological underpinnings of Chinese martial (Wushu) and healing/self care (Qigong) arts. This is a volume for theatre practitioners, students, scholars, and those interested in exploring transcultural methodologies.

The aim of this article is to focus on the body as instrument or means in performance-art. Since the body is no monolithic given, the body is approached in terms of its constitutive layers, and this may enable us to conceive of the mechanisms that make performances possible and operational, i.e. those bodily mechanisms that are implicitly or explicitly controlled or manipulated in performance. Of course, the exploitation of these bodily layers is not solely responsible for the generation of meaning in performance. Yet, it is that what fundamentally enables the generation of sense and signification in performance-art. To approach the body in terms of its layers, from body image and body schema to in-depth body, may partly answer the complexity at work in art performances, since these concepts enable us to consider, on a theoretical level, the body as represented object, as subject, as motor means for being-in-the-world, as origin of subjectivity and emotions, as hidden but most intimate place of impersonal life processes, as possibly distant image, as sensitive, fragile and plastic entity, as something we own and are owned by, as our most personal and yet extremely strange body.