Past Events
19 November 2014
Cecily Boys, London
All the Mind’s a Stage”: Theatre, Society and the Collective Imagination
In 1997 Bernard J Baars proposed his theory of consciousness: ‘In The Theatre of Consciousness: The Workspace of The Mind’ mapping internal consciousness like the a working theatre. The theatre model is not new – from Plato’s Cave to Vedanta philosophers to early societies and religious ritual. Today it continues to thrive throughout communities in classrooms, armies, media, politics and so on. Why is theatre so necessary to society? Why is theatre so necessary to consciousness? What can theatre do for consciousness that no other medium can? Ian Rickson (former Artistic Director of the Royal Court) says that when theatre is “good” it’s because every one in that room (including the audience) makes it – and when theatre is “bad” it’s because everyone in that room makes it. What happens for that society in that room, when everyone is making that “good” theatre? Posing more questions than answers this talk looks at theatre, it’s role in society, and what happens when we all take part in The Collective Imagination.
CecilyBoys is a freelance director and Artistic Director of Old Bomb Theatre Company. She trained with Ian Rickson, Nancy Meckler, Shared Experience, Natalie Abrahami and the Young Vic after an MA in Theatre & Directing at York University. As well as directing and producing productions at York Theatre Royal, The Old Red Lion, Theatre 503 and Jermyn Street Theatre, her production of ‘Being Tommy Cooper’ by Tom Green achieved 5 star reviews, four Off West End Award nominations, and national tour with Franklin Productions. She has assisted Shared Experience and in the West End as well as for Mark Goucher Ltd, with the up coming national tour of ‘Jeeves and Wooster’ (2015). She is currently returning to her doctorate studies in Theatre and Altered States of Consciousness, at York University. Theatre includes: Being Tommy Cooper (Franklin Productions, National Tour), The Church of IfEyeHad (Bush Bazaar: Bush Theatre), Twelfth Night (Nursery Theatre), Being Tommy Cooper (Old Red Lion), Talking in Bed (Theatre503), Bed, Pinter…esque, Hang Up, Waiting for Godot, Oleanna (Old Bomb Theatre at York Theatre Royal), Pitch Perfect (Tristan Bates Theatre), Edem (Jermyn Street Theatre), Office Song (White Bear Theatre), The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It (York Shakespeare Company). As associate director: Shiverman (Theatre 503), Antigone (Southwark Playhouse), Fair Trade (Shatterbox Theatre Company) As assistant director: Yes, Prime Minister (Uk Tour), Mary Shelley (Shared Experience), Three Days In May (Trafalgar Studios and tour), Lysistrata (Rose Theatre, Kingston), All I Want For Christmas (Jermyn Street Theatre) This Story Of Yours (Old Red Lion Theatre), Decade (Theatre503), Madagascar (Primavera Productions), Twelfth Night, The White Crow (York Theatre Royal).
24 September 2014
Kate Genevieve, University of Sussex
Staging subjectivity
Kate Genevieve is an Artist and Director based in Brighton, UK. Kate’s art projects use moving image, sound and the human body to create immersive environments for audiences that explore the interaction between embodiment and perception. Her art practice brings together research in contemporary science and technology with performance and phenomenological methodologies. From her website at http://cargocollective.com/kategenevieve/KATE-GENEVIEVE:
Ten years ago, I fell down a ravine in Ecuador and broke three vertebrae: as I fell I had a powerful feeling that the experience “was just a dream” and on landing my body seemed far below me. Since then, my work has examined how we model and locate our lived experience. My intention always being to expose notions of presence, identity, agency and embodiment as intrinsically plastic and highly flexible.
My collaboration with scientists at the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science seeks to bring together phenomenology and the brain sciences with my creative animation practice, to build hybrid performances and installations that investigate issues around presence, immersive environments and the body. With particular reference to the design of the eighteenth century Phantasmagoria, a form of immersive theatre that combined the magic lantern with stagecraft to conjure the feeling of impossible presences, the STAGING SUBJECTIVITY projects use the visual technologies of the 21st century to interrogate the deeply subjective and personal “feeling” of reality.”
11 March 2014
Pan-Asian Performance Theory Lecture Series II
Daniele Cuneo, Cambridge University
Emotions without Desire: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Rasa Aesthetics
Abhinavagupta (10th-11th century, Kashmir) is arguably the most significant figure in the history of Sanskrit aesthetic theory. His grand systematization radically transforms the concept of art and the understanding of the aesthetic phenomenon, also by deeply intertwining it with the philosophical, mystical and tantric speculations of śaiva absolute monism. In this presentation, I will try to outline the entire unfolding of the aesthetic event, from the creation to the appreciation of an artwork. Along these lines, its inaugurative moment is the demiurgic act of the artist, endowed with a genius almost on a par with the creative power of God. Its middle phase is considered to be the enlivening enactment on the part of performers (theatre being the supreme art in Classical India), particularly by means of their detached-cum-involved skilfulness. The acme of the aesthetic event cannot but be the blissful savouring of the aesthetic object on the part of the connoisseurs, ultimately a direct experience of one’s own pure consciousness that elevates the enjoyer of art to the level of the mystic, the aesthetic to the level of the ecstatic. Moreover, I will try to identify and analyse the four fundamental aesthetic concepts that Abhinavagupta borrows from previous aesthetic speculations, but drastically reinterprets in his own art theory. This act of theoretical appropriation and refunctionalization allows both the preservation of a strong link with the authority of traditional knowledge and the harmless introduction of speculative novelty into the tight texture of a traditional knowledge system. The philosophical result of Abhinavagupta’s hermeneutical enterprise is an aesthetic theory whose explanatory power, sheer sophistication and universal appeal represent a valuable contribution to any yet to come globalized art theory.
Dr Daniele Cuneo: Born and brought up in Italy, Daniele obtained his MA and Ph.D. in Classical South Asian Studies from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, with a focus on Sanskrit language and Classical Indian philosophy. His PhD dissertation investigated Abhinavagupta’s commentary on the Nāṭyaśāstra, the seminal text of the Sanskrit dramaturgical tradition, especially in the light of its strong connection with monistic Śaivism. After his PhD, Daniele worked as Research Associate (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) in the Nyāya Project at the University of Vienna, preparing the critical edition of the Nyāyabhāṣya, one of the earliest texts of the Sanskrit tradition of logical enquiry. Currently he is involved with the Sanskrit Manuscripts Project at Cambridge, working on an extremely vast array of manuscript material from the whole of the Indian subcontinent and covering all disciplines and religions of the literary culture of Classical South Asia. The unique perspective of the project blends the study of both textual and material aspects of South Asian manuscript cultures. His research interests include Sanskrit literary culture and aesthetic thought, particularly into epistemology, linguistic philosophy, debates among Brahmins, Buddhists and Jains, and conversation between traditions and (post-) modernity; poetry and aesthetics (kāvya, alaṃkāraśāstra and nāṭyaśāstra), with a focus on Kaśmīr in the period from the late first millennium to the early second millennium CE; Logic (nyāya) as well as Indian Philosophy as a whole; the classical juridical tradition (dharmaśāstra) and the tantric studies. In the last years Daniele has developed an interest in early modern Nepāl, especially in its immense manuscript resources, and in South India, chiefly Tamil Nadu, its classical language and cultural tradition and its interactions with the Sanskritic milieu.
26 February 2014
Most articles and books that relate theatre to psychology are written by theatre academics interested in psychology. In this research seminar, a psychologist, Professor George Mather, from the Lincoln School of Psychology, comments the first chapter of one such book, Bruce McConachie’s Engaging Audiences: A Cognitive Approach to Spectating in the Theatre (Basingstoke: PalgraveMacMillan, 2008).
George Mather is Professor of Vision Science in the School of Psychology. He has over twenty-five years of experience in teaching courses on human visual perception and the psychology of visual art to undergraduate and postgraduate students, and he is the author of The Psychology of Visual Art (Cambridge University Press, 2014) Essentials of Sensation and Perception (2011), Foundations of Sensation and Perception (2009), and the The Motion After-Effect: A Modern Perspective (1998, co-edited with Stuart Anstis and Frans Verstraten).
27 November 2013
Pan-Asian Performance Theory Lecture Series
Introduction: Dr. Sreenath Nair
Dr. Ashley Thorpe, Royal Holloway, University of London
Somewhere between ‘xinli’ and ‘qi’: the aesthetics of the Chinese opera actor in performance.
This paper aims to raise questions about what the actor does in performance, and consider acting technique as connected to wider aesthetic and socio-political discourses. It will begin with a brief historical contextualisation of performance theory in Chinese acting, noting Li Yu’s first comprehensive treatise on theatre published in 1617. It will also note how some actors deployed proto-psychological approaches to acting to realise more ‘convincing’ performances from the middle of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The paper will then focus specifically on Jingju (Beijing opera), a form that emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century. It will highlight how treatises on Jingju performance aesthetics in the twentieth century have tended to, though not exclusively, emphasise non-realism. I will argue that, as Western forms were imported to China via Japan in the first decades of the twentieth century, these non-realistic assertions were linked to distinctly ‘Chinese’ fine art and philosophical aesthetic traditions as a means to resist the pressures of Westernisation. From published sources, and my own experience of studying Jingju performance, the paper will assert that only through an examination of both impulses – realistic character psychology (renwu xinli 人物心理) and non-realistic performance aesthetics connected to presence (qi 氣) – can we begin to fully engage with the work of the Chinese opera actor.
Dr. Ashley Thorpe is Lecturer in the Department of Drama & Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London. His book, The Role of the Clown (‘chou’) in Traditional Chinese Drama, was published with Edwin Mellen Press in 2007, and recent articles on aspects of Chinese and British Chinese performance have appeared in Theatre Research International, Studies in Theatre & Performance, Asian Theatre Journal and Contemporary Theatre Review. He is currently working on a monograph documenting British Chinese performance in London across the twentieth century, and co-editing an interdisciplinary book on British Chinese culture.
22 May 2013
Daniel Watt, Loughborough University
The Consciousness of Objects
Focusing on Heidegger’s essay ‘The Thing’, Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, Alice Rayner’s ‘Presenting Objects, Presenting Things’ and Peter Schwenger’s The Tears of Things this paper constructs a phenomenological background to the status of the stage object and then questions the manner in which the ‘prop’, thing or object comes ‘alive’ in a variety of performance contexts including Futurism, Richard Foreman, Tadeusz Kantor and Forced Entertainment. Other theoretical detours will be made along the way through the work of Object Theatre practitioners, the Polish writer Bruno Schulz and his ‘heretical’ exploration of the transformative potentials of matter, puppets and other abject objects, and finally in the animated films of Jan Svankmajer, Jiri Barta and The Quay brothers.
Dr Daniel Watt is a Senior Lecturer in English and Drama at Loughborough University. His research interests include fragmentary writing, ethics and literature and philosophical and literary influences on theatre and performance in the 20th century. He is currently working on a book, The Consciousness of Objects, with Rodopi Press.
27 March 2013
Event co-hosted with the 21st century research group (College of Arts)
Peter Malekin, Durham University
The Dying Swan’s Last Croak
From history to ontology as the frame of meaning: from time, through timing to timelessness as the potential range of theatre. The first is a shift happening here and now in us and about us in the cultures of the world. The second is now growing to recognition in the study of language, literature and theatre. The possibility is the direct experience of unity within multiplicity and within human consciousness in its various levels
Peter Malekin co-authored Consciousness, Literature and Theatre: Theory and Beyond with Ralph Yarrow (Macmillan, 1997). He has translated dramas from Swedish for performance, is interested in the relationship between language, consciousness and verse speaking, and was instrumental in having an exhibition of actors’ masks, based on ancient Greek models, brought over to London. He has a long-standing interest in Platonic, Indian and Eastern philosophy and several decades’ experience of consciousness-developing techniques. He is also interested in science fiction, the epistemology of science and its relationship to non-European epistemologies. Previously Senior Lecturer, Chair of the Department of English and Director of the Centre for Seventeenth Century Studies at the University of Durham (England), and Visiting Professor at the University of Trondheim and Eastern Mediterranean University. Now retired, he is writing and lecturing.
20 March 2013
Susie Mower, PhD Student, Department of English and Drama, Loughborough University
Samuel Beckett: Towards a Phenomenological Ontology of Consciousness
To use the philosophical theories of Jean-Paul Sartre, and his fellow French existential philosophers, as a means of attempting to “unravel” the complexities inherent in the work of Samuel Beckett, at this stage of the second decade of the twenty-first century, is far from being a revolutionary and original undertaking. Beckett scholarship abounds with diverse works, utilising virtually the full spectrum of philosophical approaches and advancements, all attempting to shed new light on the oeuvre of a writer who famously offers precious little by way of analysis and explanation, when it comes to his art. The “French existentialists”, and their German predecessors for that matter, are predominantly used, or, at least, were notably used, in the early years of Beckett academia, as a means of deeming the works of Beckett and his contemporaries as, amongst other things, “Theatre of the Absurd”. It is perhaps the overwhelming popularity, success, exposure and, ultimately, over-use, of the “absurdist” label, that accounts for the current tendency amongst scholars to move away from some of the philosophies that gave birth to it, presumably in order to avoid recovering old ground; the school of French existentialism, especially, might be considered “old fashioned” or lacking contemporary relevance in the field of literature and art, just as it seems to be in the field of philosophy itself. When it comes to phenomenological, rather than specifically existential, discourse, however, it often seems as though Sartre is overlooked. This study argues that we do something of a disservice to Sartre’s work, there first and first forgotten in many cases, to leave it frozen in time, particularly as Sartre, by the very nature of his extensive, detailed and rigorous exposition of the mode of being that we call human consciousness, still has so much to say that can be useful and relevant when it comes to the ever-expanding field of consciousness studies. Beckett’s literary works, we might argue, as well as his works for the theatre, radio, and screen, also detail a writer engaged in a comprehensive exploration of consciousness, that realm of human reality that allows us to question what it really means to be. If we begin to view Sartre as the phenomenologist that he, at least at one time, considered himself to be, rather than the purely “existentialist” philosopher that popular culture has labelled him, we can begin to observe the ways in which Beckett uncovers some of the mysteries of human consciousness, making the inner workings of consciousness visible, through a variety of forms and media, and using subjects of diverse and ambiguous identity. So, it is with contemporary consciousness studies that the “retro” theory of Sartre, amongst others, will be coupled in this study. There may be a sense of apathy, in the present day, towards what is generally a massively over-simplified and pre-packed notion of Sartre’s theories, but if we look closely, he is a key player in a new and interdisciplinary field of study. This work, by way of overview, begins by following a similar trajectory to that of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, as it unpacks the notion of being-for-itself (Sartre’s term, in a nutshell, for human consciousness), using Beckett’s oeuvre as a medium through which we can pick out, identify and see clear examples of Sartre’s theories, thus making consciousness visible. By employing Sartre’s lengthy and intricate exposition of being-for-itself, as our “model” for the human consciousness, we can begin to see the complexities, and the mode of being, of that very region of being in the works of Beckett. The first three chapters of this study seek to examine the ways in which human consciousness differentiates itself from that other mode of being which would hold it hostage in the material reality, as it takes on form in order to become visible (Chapter One); how “modern” technology can be used to expose the inner workings, duration, and emptiness of consciousness as it sustains and disperses itself temporally (Chapter Two); and how consciousness is capable of transcending the earthly, escaping the body-prison, and assuming higher states where, as its own witness, it can realise the “holy” or “divine” elements in its own being and manifest the invisible through art (Chapter Three). Once we have taken this rigorous exploration of consciousness, on its own terms, to its limits, the subsequent chapters consider how this mode of being is forced to adapt and modify itself, first of all when it is faced with the concrete being of others who rearrange its world (Chapter Four), and secondly, when society imposes upon it a sex.
Susie Mower is currently undertaking postgraduate research at Loughborough University, focussing on French existential philosophy, and applying the theories established in the writings of Sartre, Camus, and De Beauvoir, to the drama, prose and poetry of Samuel Beckett. Exploring the concept of “being”, as opposed to the void, or “nothingness”, Susie’s current work is very much a continuation upon a consciousness studies-based theme, which she began to develop whilst completing her MA in Theatre and Consciousness at the University of Lincoln, where she is also in her third year of lecturing. Publications to date include, “Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata: An Intercultural Consciousness”, in Consciousness, Literature and the Arts (vol. 11, no. 2, August 2010), and “Etienne Decroux: A Corporeal Consciousness”, in Performing Consciousness (Cambridge Scholars Publishing: 2010).
20 February 2013
Professor Mick Mangan, Loughborough University:
Staging ageing: theatre, performance and the narrative of decline
Mangan will talk about his book of the same title, which forms the primary output of his AHRC Fellowship “Staging Aging”. The subject of ageing is a particularly pressing one for society at present: the issue of an ageing global and national population presents social and psychological pressures on an unprecedented scale (see below). The topic of ageing, too, raises all sorts of personal questions about the self, in all its simultaneous unity and multiplicity – questions which have been sharply focused by recent research in consciousness studies .
Mick Mangan is an academic and playwright, who has taught at Universities both in the UK and the US. His past academic publications include “Doctor Faustus: A Critical Study” (Penguin, 1987), “A Preface to Shakespeare’s Tragedies” (Longman, 1991), “A Preface to Shakespeare’s Comedies” (Longman, 1996), “Writers and their Work: Edward Bond” (Northcote House/British Council, 1998), “Staging Masculinities” (2003). “Performing Dark Arts: A Cultural History of Conjuring” in the Intellect Series on Theatre and Consciousness, 2007. His new book on “Staging ageing: theatre, performance and the narrative of decline” will appear in the same series in 2013. Plays include “The Earth Divided” (1985), “The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke”, “Festival” (1988), and “Settling with the Indians” (1991). He currently holds the Chair of Drama in the Department of English and Drama at Loughborough University, UK.
12 December 2012
Martin Curtis, University of Lincoln:
Theatre and Conceptual Blending
In this paper I address Fauconnier and Turner’s theory of conceptual blending. Their theory offers a material and experiential explanation for the inherent doubleness of theatricality; performing human beings exist simultaneously in both real and fictitious time. Fauconnier and Turner suggest that all cultural performances that are based in make believe role playing involve cognitive blending. Linking the theatrical experience with blending also suggests the usual distinction between realistic and overtly theatrical productions; ‘active’ from ‘passive’ spectators becomes complicated. Focussing on student productions of Oh, What a Lovely War and Romeo and Juliet I explore the relevance of conceptual blending for theatre and performance studies.
Martin Curtis is a lecturer in drama in the Lincoln School of Performing Arts
16 October 2012
Professor Daniel Mroz, University of Ottawa.
The Dancing Word
The Dancing Word is an integrated approach to the training of performers based on traditional Chinese martial arts, singing and rhythmic traditions from around the world, extended voice technique, contemporary dance and modern approaches to actor training. The Dancing Word is principally concerned with impulse and causality, with the timing and tension of credible and compelling stage action. This session will attempt to provide an overview of this approach, from foundation training and partner work to the composition of original performance material. For more information please see www.dancingword.org
Daniel Mroz is a theatre director, choreographer and acting teacher specializing in the physical and vocal training of performers. He leads Les Ateliers du corps, a theatre training and performance creation studio in Ottawa, Canada. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at the University of Ottawa.Prof. Mroz originally apprenticed under director and actor Richard Fowler. A student of the Chinese martial arts since 1993, he is a 20th generation disciple of Chen Taijiquan under Master Chen Zhonghua. He also holds an instructor’s diploma in qigong under Master Kenneth S. Cohen with whom he has trained for over a decade. The Dancing Word, Prof. Mroz’ book on the use of Chinese martial arts and qigong in the training of contemporary stage actors and dancers is published by Rodopi Press.
16 June 2012
Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe.
Workshop and discussion: Cool-down for actors.
There is some research and associated insight, into physical warm-up. There is much less research and academic writing with regard to possibility, need, or problematic issues regarding emotional warm-up. As with warm-up, research into cool-down has focused on the physical aspects of performance in theatre, singing, dance and sports. In the context of theatre acting, there is consensus that actors may be affected emotionally by the roles they play. This is the basis for the need for systematic cool-down after performance. The workshop offered a practical exploration of an approach to cool down based in consciousness studies
15 May 2012
Per Brask (Professor of Drama, University of Winnipeg, Canada, and Visiting Professor of Theatre and Consciousness, Lincoln School of Performing Arts, University of Lincoln)
Appropriate Forms of Praise of Acting in Theatre Criticism
We welcomed Per Brask, Visiting Professor of Theatre and Consciousness in the Lincoln School of Performing Arts. Together we discussed a joint draft paper by Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Brask and Harry Youtt on Appropriate Forms of Praise of Acting in Theatre Criticism.
The starting point is the observation that that the larger part of the majority of reviews of theatre is likely to be spent on the play (the dramatist’s text) and the production (the director’s ways of interpreting the text in his or her process of putting the text on stage), and the scenography (some or all of set, costume, lighting and sound design). The people whom the audience see on stage for the entire duration of the performance, the actors, usually and typically receive the least of all the words available to the reviewer. When we look at the words that theatre critics do allocate to actors, the disappointment continues. Critics are rarely at a loss to find suitable, often ironic, witty, or sarcastic words of describing in detail what precisely they did not like about a particular actor’s performance. When it comes to praise, the direct vocabulary is limited to words such as “good, very good, stunning, extraordinary, moving, beautiful, admirable” for stage actors.
27 April 2012
Showcase Performance of Hiranyala: An Unforgettable Journey
Ursula Dinkgräfe wrote Hiranyala in German over the Christmas week of 1987, shortly after retiring from a 40-year career as a stage actress: highlights include a number of seasons with eminent German theatre director Gustaf Gründgens. The performance on 27 April 2012 coincides with her 85th birthday. The story was translated by her son, Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Professor of Drama at the Lincoln School of Performing Arts, University of Lincoln, who worked with Gayathri Ganapathy on the production, later joined by Shrikant Subramaniam. Gayathri is from Bangalore, India, where she obtained her BA in Psychology, Literature and Sociology, and her MSc in Psychology. She is currently studying for her PhD in the School of Psychology at the University of Lincoln. For the past 18 years she has trained in the Indian dance form of Bharata Natyam, as well as training in contemporary, Bollywood and hip hop dance styles. Shrikant is an enthusiastic and motivated professional specialising in Indian Classical Dance (Bharata Natyam), Theatre Studies and Dance anthropology with experience in teaching, performing and research. Shrikant has performed extensively in India and abroad and has worked extensively as a freelance dancer, choreographer, story teller, and yoga instructor in some of the reputed dance and theatre companies in the UK. Presently, Shrikant is the dance and education officer of a reputed South Asian Arts Organisation Manasamitra (www.manasamitra.com) based in the West Yorkshire region of theUK.
20 March 2012
Gayathri Ganapathy, University of Lincoln
Dance Movement Training and its Impact on Cognitive Processes and Motor Skills
Gayathri defined the terms of her topic, and gave us a few examples of relevant studies she came across in her literature review. Her project is to investigate the benefits of dance movement on cognitive processes and motor skills, i.e., mental and physical well-being. Gayathri conducts a range of tests with the children she is studying before she works with them. The results of those tests form the baseline. This is followed by a number of sessions in which Gayathri works with the children on movement accompanied by music. After this intervention, the children are tested again, and results from after the intervention are compared with baseline results. One set of interventions was carried out in India in December / January 2011/12, with 17 children in the experimental group and 17 children in a control group which underwent normal PE teaching. Their average age was 8.5 years, ranging from 7-10. Gayathri taught both groups; she is still working on the statistical analysis of the results, and some results have come out as significant. This is an essential concept in empirical sciences. A significant result is one for which the possibility is minimal that the result could be coincidental, a matter of chance. The design of the project in India was such that children underwent tests to establish baseline values in December; then they had their intervention or control group activities for six days in early January, with one session of 40 minutes per day, followed by a day of break and then the post-intervention tests were conducted. In the UK, Gayathri worked in a primary school in Lincoln, conducted baseline tests for 20 children in the experimental group, taught by herself, and for 20 children in the control group, taught their conventional PE by the allocated school’s PE teacher. The experimental group received 2 sessions per week at 40 minutes each over a period of three months, followed by post-intervention tests, which are ongoing. The further development of the project will depend on the results and subsequent advice from Gayathri’s supervisory team. The data collection should be completed by the end of 2012, allowing time for writing up and submission of the dissertation in 2013.
21 February 2012
Jessica Bockler, Liverpool
The Workshop Experience
The nature of a workshop can be considered from different perspectives:
Academic context:
· Neurological perspective, including mirror neurones; what is the “normal” state of being?
· Cognitive perspective; developmental, how do people change?
· Psychodynamic perspective: conscious and unconscious processes, self and ego; therapeutic perspective.
· Spiritual / mystical / transcendent perspective: getting in touch with something beyond our ordinary sense of self, which encompasses higher states of consciousness or ultimate reality.
Research
How does it work? / What are the underlying mechanisms? How does it work?
Experiential focus, value: how can it be improved,
The context of the workshop is essential in determining the degree to which the workshop leader will seek to ensure a feeling of security for the workshop participants, and the extent to which the workshop leader will seek to push the participants’ boundaries.
The time of day is important for workshops. During the day, the mind is more alert and active, while at nighttime, the mind tends to be more open to the experience of altered states. To some extent, nighttime can be simulated externally during the day, but the inner clock would still be operative and not fully fooled.
The work with projection might be of interest for further exploration; this is relevant in the relationship between the workshop facilitator and the participants. Participants might want to achieve something, they may want to please, or they may be holding back, they may even develop an adverse reaction to the workshop facilitator. All these dynamics may also be relevant within the group. Often the workshop facilitator is the person on to whom workshop participants project their own personal material. If the workshop takes place in a therapeutic context, the facilitator should have the skills to recognise such projection and to use it fruitfully in the therapy. In conventional theatre contexts, facilitators usually do not have the necessary training. In some cases, projection is consciously used as the context for a workshop. For example, a split workshop space could be used for participants to explore the given theme of masculinity and femininity. Each participant will then immerse him/herself into that theme and express what comes up within them (movement, voice etc.).
24 January 2012
The Workshop Experience
Many of those who attend workshops in a performing arts context, i.e., across the disciplines of theatre, dance and music, confirm, in conversation, that independent of the specific workshop contents, there is a difference of mental state between everyday life, and the time spent in the workshop.
The outward conditions of the workshop have an important impact on how it is perceived by the participants. For example, if stage technicians going about their business are seen and heard from the workshop area, participants may feel watched and therefore uncomfortable. Noise from equipment in the workshop space can have a detrimental effect, too.
Much depends on the age and context of participants: at A-level, students may become different people in a workshop situation no matter how well they know each other and the teacher / workshop facilitator. Self-consciousness can be characteristic of workshops, with participants either seeking to over-achieve, or to back out, to please the teacher, or other workshop participant.
Much depends on the workshop leader. A good workshop leader gives the impression of being in control at all times, of competence, while not being obtrusive at the same time, an implicit, unspoken dimension of leadership, saying what is needed but not too much, giving the participants the feeling that they are secure. A few warm-up activities at the very start of a workshop, at a level that every participant can engage with those activities, and can physically do them without feeling embarrassed, provides participants with a feeling of security, which then in turn allows them to drop their defences for the ensuing activities. The good workshop leader also levels the status of participants that they bring to the workshop: in the workshop context, the student and the professor, the director and the actor, and people from difference academic backgrounds and disciplines, ideally become equal. This balancing process also helps to deal with participants’ expectations.
The workshop leader ideally creates a state of consciousness in the participant that is semi-meditative, neutral, poised in the moment, which necessitates the mind to be free of many of the daily-life issues.
In psychology, the workshop leader effect describes the possibility that a workshop-based intervention yields effects not due to the contents of the workshop but due to the charisma of the workshop leader. Mirror neurones may play a part in this. The way to counter possible undesirable contamination of data, workshop leaders of similar level of charisma need to be found for test group and control group, or the same workshop leader needs to run both workshops.
The question of legacy is important in a workshop context: to what extent do workshop leaders seek to replicate exactly, by way of workshop content, what they were taught, or what they understand to be the correct way their masters conducted, or would have conducted the workshop, and to what extent do they own personality, their own research and thinking inform the workshop content.
Workshops enable a feeling of belonging to a group, while at the same time strengthening the sense of individuality. It is a give and take for the workshop participant of asserting oneself and dropping one’s defences.
At the start of a workshop a lot of negotiation takes place, with participants defining, at least for themselves, their spaces; they may also consider who they might want to work with, and whom they might want to avoid.
There is a difference between a workshop as a part of a rehearsal process, with participants who know each other, and a workshop on its own, which brings together participants many of whom have not known each other before. In the context of music, if musicians come together in a rehearsal, their roles are well defined, down to the place in the orchestra. Even if participants know in advance what a workshop will be about, there is still a much higher level of the unknown than in music rehearsal.
In some cases, the concept of workshop is associated with the process of teaching. On the other hand, teaching tends to be more formal, with more strictly defined roles of teacher and student / pupil, than the ideal workshop situation would suggest, where informality is the norm and the workshop leader is precisely not the superior teacher, but leads with different qualities than the teacher. A different position is that the two are not necessarily binaries, but closer to each other than a binary status might imply. A good teacher would use workshop techniques, for example. A further dimension comes in with cultural expectations.
In one workshop, one participant had a disability which made her chatter non-stop. The workshop leader devised an exercise that allowed participants to engage in the disabled person’s way of existence, to enter into her world.
A further example, from a dance therapy workshop. It started with individual activities, such as awareness of self and awareness of the space surrounding the participant, and each participant was in their own well-defined and thus manageable space. In due course the workshop leader asked participants to spread out, and requested participants to blindfold themselves, to become aware of the energies around themselves, and to keep moving around the space. After a few minutes of bumping into each other, participants managed to achieve a state where they were aware both of themselves and their environment to the extent that they could move without bumping into each other. This exercise represented the basis for the workshop to progress from exercises centred on the individual to those dealing with the group.
A third example. In January 2006, I (Daniel) attended a symposium at the University of Exeter’s Drama Department, entitled The Changing Body: the bodymind in contemporary training and performance. As part of the symposium, I attended a two-hour workshop-demonstration with movement artist Sandra Reeve. One of the exercises consisted of workshop participants teaming up in pairs of their choice. Partner A would sit at the side of the space observing partner B move in the space. As instructed by Reeve, A would then engage in movements him or herself, which B was expected to pick up and use as inspiration for the development of their own movements. After the exercise was over, A and B would discuss their experience, and swap places for a second run of the exercise, with A moving and B at the side, again followed by discussion. When I was moving, I occasionally glanced at my partner and intuitively integrated the inspiration from her movements into mine. When I sat on the side, I first engaged in movement, as instructed, and observed how my partner in turn integrated my suggestions into her movement. In the course of the exercise, however, I found myself no longer moving but, in a state of very high concentration and alertness, which felt, at the same time, very relaxed, suggesting just in thought. Seeing her lying on the floor, for example, I thought: “She could now start movements like a mermaid”. Later, my thoughts became less fully expressed, turning from sentences to phrases (up, left, right, more gentle, etc.). To my surprise, my partner followed my mental suggestions one by one. We realized, in our post-exercise discussion, that she had different images from the ones I had; thus, what I envisaged as a mermaid movement was for her the swinging of a clock pendulum, but still, she had made the movements I had wanted her to make. I would rule out, with hindsight, the possibility that I “merely” observed some latent component of her position, which then triggered me to think “mermaid”, for example, and then her latent component indeed developed into what I confirmed as “mermaid” (and which was “pendulum” for herself). What happened was that my thought (the cause) resulted in her movement (the effect).
Peter Brook exercise: how to account for, and possibly measure empirically, the level of synchronicity in a workshop group. When do people who come together form a group, and is that moment when they become a group obvious to an observer?
7 December 2011
Harry Youtt, UCLA.
Theatre and Neuroscience
Much brain research is based on ancient lore, and things that have been taken for granted throughout the ages now come to some justification based on science.
The concept of conatus is one of those; first developed by some of the Roman schools of philosophy, it was picked up by later philosophers, primarily Spinoza, Hobbs and Descartes, conatus is the impulse and the instinctive effort of all physical things to persevere as themselves. The basic physical notion has been transferred to the mind. Here, conatus becomes the human psyche’s impulse to always justify himself or herself by some form of story that explains life and a person’s relationship to and purposefulness in life, and the reason to go on. We know which areas of the brain are in charge of narrative creation (fMRI). During experience of a default state, when we are not engaged in active thinking—not sleeping but merely coasting, the same brain areas remain active that have been found to be active in narrative creation: during experience of the default state, we / our brain are/is telling stories to ourselves. Those stories do not have to be recalled. What creates the impulse to tell a story to other people, to involve other people in this process, is a shared conative interest.
Theory of mind describes our natural impulse to try to figure out, from looking at another person, what is going on in that person’s mind. It is necessary for human survival, and it provides the basis for character creation. The link with conatus is this: what is the other person telling him/herself conatively, and how does that impact on my own conative storytelling? In the context of theatre, we have the conative impulse of storytelling on stage, and the conatus combined with theory of mind on the side of the audience.
The neurological mechanism that is closely related to conatus and theory of mind involves mirror neurones. Discovered by brain science in 1995, the existence of mirror neurones explains scientifically what has been part of people’s fundamental experience at least since the evolutionary development of homo sapiens. If we see the movement of another person, neuronal activity is triggered that would normally make us mirror the movement we have seen. If we see another person eat a lemon, we start salivating. Experiments also suggest that the observed stimuli must correspond to a certain level of authenticity, otherwise the mirroring is not triggered. In the experiment, the scientist’s authentic action of picking up a peanut and putting it into his mouth triggered mirror neuronal activity in the monkeys. The inauthentic movement of picking up a peanut and moving it to a position next to the mouth, and not putting it into the mouth, in such a way that the monkey was apparently able to see through the attempted deception, did not trigger mirror neuronal activity. Transferred to the theatre context, this raises the question as to what constitutes authenticity, and whether the experiment implies that authentic is realistic. In theatre, the presentation on stage can be realistic in the sense that the spectator thinks that what the actor is representing could be him/herself. In the case of caricature, irony or any other distortion of realism, the right/left hemisphere differentiation comes in. The left hemisphere uncritically accepts all creative input, while the left hemisphere interprets, analyses, or translates such input in the process of seeking to establish the input’s meaning. A categorically non-realistic performance thus invites the left hemisphere to investigate how the input relates to “real experience.
Based on Rizzolati’s initial research, Marco Iacoboni (UCLA) studied mirror neurones in relation to empathy. In particular, the insula reacts to negative expressions of other people; while theory of mind involves a conscious thought process, the insula activities lead to unconscious responses to perceived triggers. For example, if I observe a person reacting to a bad smell they have perceived and I have not (yet), the insula in my brain shows activity suggesting that I have picked up the other person’s perception.
The processes discussed so far may also apply to dramatic presentation in film or on TV, but there is still a difference in terms of liveness, which is best captured with the use of Lorca’s concept of duende: it is the special nature of a great performer’s presence, of a great performance, and is often rendered a soul, referring to the true inner self. It sits next to the angel and the muse—both are external. The spectator’s appreciation is not merely of a representation of duende in the performance, but reflects their experience of the performance originating from and expressing duende.
The nature and experience of duende link to recent research on the heart. There are many neurotransmitters in the heart, to the extent that some writers consider the heart as a second brain, a brain specialising in emotion, or a further sense receiving emotion and passing it on to the brain. This is nothing new in the history of folklore, and is also evidenced by the frequent use of heart-related metaphors in daily communication. At the very least, it is possible to say that the heart is strongly affected by emotion. For example, the heart produces and secretes hormones, such as one that protects significant parts of the brain (the amygdala among others) from the chemical effect of negative emotions. In addition, the heart is a much more powerful electromagnetic oscillator than the brain. The implication for the theatre context is that if you have a whole auditorium full of spectators, and they experience a moment of duende, or at least a moment of intense emotion, it is likely that as a result they share a considerable cardiac experience, which multiplies through the sharing, fills the space and affects those on stage as well.
It is here, then, that conatus, theory of mind, mirror neurones, duende and the heart all come together in the experience of theatre. Further, the interaction between duende and the heart could also be related to mirror neurones, as the spectator’s non-conscious recognition that someone (the actor, the dramatist) has been to the core, the soul, which spectators share with him or her. One step beyond that is the possibility that in the theatre we are all part of the same mechanism.
Recent neurological research confirms that the perception of a flower triggers the same brain response as the creation of the image of a flower using Indian mudra finger movements. (Sree)
Peter Brook on Scofield:
Paul Scofield talks to his audience in another way. While in Gielgud the instrument stands halfway between the music and the hero, and so demands a player, trained and skilled–in Scofield, instrument and player are one–an instrument of flesh and blood that opens itself to the unknown. Scofield, when I first knew him as a very young actor, had a strange characteristic: verse hampered him, but he would make unforgettable verse out of lines of prose. It was as though the act of speaking a word sent through him vibrations that echoed back meanings far more complex than his rational thinking could find: he would pronounce a word like “night” and then he would be compelled to pause: listening with all his being to the amazing impulses stirring in some mysterious inner chamber, he would experience the wonder of discovery at the moment when it happened. Those breaks, those sallies in depth, give his acting its absolutely personal structure of rhythms, its own instinctive meanings: to rehearse a part he lets his whole nature–a milliard of super-sensitive scanners–pass to and fro across the words. In performance the same // process makes everything that he has apparently fixed come back again each night the same and absolutely different. (The Empty Space, 124-125)