Current theatre scholarship, especially in this country, is beginning to adjust to the notion of embodied practice as a form of legitimate research into questions of performance, philosophy, psychology, subjectivity, relationality and community.
The academic study of theatre and performance has historically relied on observation and analysis as primary knowledge-generating processes. Practice as research confounds this process because observer and observed are collapsed into one. How can I write objectively about my own experiences? How can I remain distanced enough to reflect upon performance and training when the heightened states they evoke seem to eliminate the very distance between the self-that-acts and the self-that-watches?
Of course, in a post-structuralist paradigm, the authority of the outside observer's objectivity is already in question. What do we lose in privileging this perspective over the inside, internal, intimate, view?
I've begun a solo training practice that I am using as part of my research into performance and philosophy. My goal is to court the void and my own fears, and to bring the questions I wrestle with in my mind into the medium of my moving body.
Writing about this kind of research is difficult. How does one transfer the information garnered from subjective experiences (many of which are non-discursive, technical, or just boring) to a larger audience? And to what end?
My current solution to this problem is twofold. I've created a separate blog which you can find here that will serve as a journal-style record of my studio experiences.
Secondly, after each session I am going to write a short text for performance (aka a "Tiny Imaginary Play") which I will share on this blog. In the spirit of Suzan-Lori Parks' 365 Days/365 Plays, I'll write these brief pieces immediately after my training practice. I find transforming experiences from one form to another quite generative. Translating the non-verbal, non-linear "text" of my improvised training practice into the highly structured medium of the performance text is a form of auto-remix that I hope will bring out aspects of the research that might not be captured by video or journal-style writing.
"Current theatre scholarship, especially in this country, is beginning to adjust to the notion of embodied practice as a form of legitimate research into questions of performance, philosophy, psychology, subjectivity, relationality and community."
ReplyDeleteBut this does not go far enough, because it demands that the work of embodied practice be articulated in the languages of these primarily written discourses. What if embodied practice is a form of legitimate research into questions of space, body, interaction, touch, sweat, structure, and intimacy? What if this counts as research whether or not it is also described in the languages you mentioned?
And to be even more provocative, we could then ask whether theories of "performance, philosophy, psychology, subjectivity, relationality and community" are also investigations into spaces, bodies, interactions, touch, sweat, etc. In other words, how do the academic practices of reading and writing serve embodied practice?
Also, I want to propose a third mode of writing that interests me, alongside the two you mentioned (writing performance texts and journal-style writing). What if, after a session of solo practice, one were to attempt to write down, in technical terms, *what one did*. This would be more difficult and rigorous than writing a journal-style stream of consciousness. And it would be more directly related to the studio work than writing a performance text.
Just to push the question (once again), it seems to me that writing a performance text after a studio session is a distinct creative act, which can be inspired by the studio work but is also quite independent of it. Whereas, think of the discipline demanded by the task of writing down what you did. Wouldn't this help to answer the questions you posed about how to be objective about your own experience? Wouldn't it demand a kind of analysis of the studio work precisely in terms understandable by others? And wouldn't this be a fascinating use of the video document - to help you reconstruct a description of what you did in objective terms?
What remains, then, is the question of boring. Wouldn't a purely technical account of what you did be boring? But I think this is a question of 1) finding the right language to describe what you did; 2) finding the right audience to read it; and above all 3) finding the right structure for your studio work so that it actually involves an investigation the results of which would be interesting to others. And is this not the test of whether a practice can be called research?
I take it all back! I went to your other blog, and what you are calling "journal-style" writing is exactly what I meant about writing a technical description of what you did.
ReplyDeleteFirst I want to say that I find it very interesting to read these descriptions even if they are somewhat technical. I suppose this makes me a "studio geek," by analogy with a Russian history geek, or a Lord of the Rings geek: someone who is interested in the small details of this particular area of work that might not mean anything to other people.
Second, I think the relation between this writing and the practice has the potential to offer the kind of objectivity you mention in the post above. Given some time, a feedback loop can develop in which the writing is a step back from and consideration of the doing. Crucially, the writing then begins to inform the doing of the following day. And I do not think this is radically different from how writing interacts with the embodied aspects of scholarly and scientific research!
Here's to your practice!
Thanks Ben! Yeah, I think my desire to have two blogs is probably a sign of my own continued discomfort with the complete integration of different parts of my work...
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm totally with you about using the tool of embodied research as a way to shake the yoke of (phal)logocentrism in the academy and elsewhere. Still trying to figure out how to do this, and what combination of sweating, writing, and videorecording might help...
oh and finally - i think for me the performance texts are a way to tie in my unshakeable identity as a director/devisor/creator too. Can I be a moving/feeling/sensing body, a reflective/analytical thinker, and a expressive/generative creator all at once (or in close proximity?)
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ReplyDeleteI have been looking for a very nuanced understanding of embodied practice. Lo and behold I found it here. So grateful to you guys.
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