Description
First of all, I have to confess. I did miss writing my learnings on theatre, I have not done it since last september (very irresponsible btw). However, I think I started with a pretty good attitude this year. So, this week we worked on the theatre practice we want to apply to this year´s school play, which is the poor theatre of Jerzy Grotowski. We did 2 sessions on practical exploration, and we individually read about his conventions and ideas in a worksheet miss alicia gave us.
Analysis
The most important thing about this theatre practice is to know that grotowski placed the actor as a private individual, and that he tried to explore the actor´s relationship with the theatre in a new level. As he placed the actor of the core of the theatre practice, it was very important that each actor receives a training in which they can discover their physicality again, what he calls the memory of the body. Also, he had lots of corporals that help him with his concept of using your body until the point of exhaustion,
but continue until you can´t longer feel it.
Personally, the experience of having a personal training for this practice was a very unique and useful experience. Not only because it will help us to direct and show how things should be done in this theatre practice while directing the school play, but because it was more easy to understand Grotowski´s concepts once the practical work was done. I think that we achieve some of grotowski´s goals, as we connected with our bodies and found our limitations. Of course we didn´t have enough time to break them, but at least realising that in just two sessions was amazing. Also, we managed to work with some of his concepts, such as oppositions and contrasting movements. I really think that the most important learning outcome from this was how to connect with your body in a different way that allows you more control over it and more mental connection.
Connections
Grotowski´s concepts: We worked a lot with the contrasting movements during the training. Also, we did some of his most famous positions such as the baby and the cat. Moreover, we worked as individuals, one of the main things on his concepts.
Previous physical trainings: This training was very similar to german expressionism. This is because both depended very much on the expulsion of things in order to act. Also, both depended in physical work that exhaust you.
YOGA: Grotowski´s trainings connect with yoga as you connect with your body mentally and physically. I think it is amazing how these two things can help you to have that much control over your body, or at least help you to find the capacity of it.
Reflection
Grotowski asked himself a lot: what makes theatre unique? an he thought of his own answer; THE ACTOR, as he thought he was the only one who can give us the spiritual and mythic experiences we seek. This make me think; is not just the fact that theatre itself is unique, but that every theatre practice is unique too. Even if they come from another practice, every single them have their uniqueness.
Which makes me wonder,
Is theatre unique for everyone? does every director have a diferent opinion on theatre? why? If all directors asked themselves about it, will everyone state the actor as the core? or will someone say something is more important? is it really necessary to have a real person acting to call it theatre? why different theatre practices test different conventions? why is theatre not the same thing globally? why does each person give it a different meaning? does theatre has a meaning? do you need to understand theatre to define it? could an outside perspective be the same as an internal perspective? or does experience limits you less?
