A Practice of Life in Performing Arts
The contemporary experience of being a human being is fundamentally unpredictable. This is partly caused by a fast-moving society, affected by globalization and digitization and these contemporary challenges are reflected onto the stage. This reflection calls for a renegotiation of acting techniques.
The research aims at developing and creating a broadly applicable language and methodology about contemporary acting training applied in the living praxis of the carousel improvisation which facilitates the actor to discover and create him- or herself as a manifold player in artistic processes.
The project is driven by my wish to enhance the artistic practice of the carousel improvisation as a main working tool to train the contemporary actor and to create a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between presentation and representation and a more nuanced understanding of different play positions in the production process of theater.
The purpose of this training is to develop and strengthen the contemporary actor’s/student’s personality artistically through developing a reflected relation to themselves in the different work stages as actors and performers during the carousel improvisation
The theoretical context in which my concept arises is Mette Tranholm`s PhD dissertation Disincarnation: Jack Smith and the Character as Assemblage. Disincarnation refers to the traffic between classical, Brechtian, Artaudian, and postdramatic acting techniques in contemporary performance art.
Mette and I stage an encounter between her disincarnation theory and the carousel concept referring to our main research questions:
How can we provide the actor/student with a broadly applicable acting vocabulary that helps to expand classical acting techniques?
How do we train the contemporary actor/student in a fast-moving society, affected by globalization, fragmentation and digitization that has changed the idea of a distinct identity?
Our starting point is a renegotiation of classical acting techniques build upon the emergence of performance genres such as reality theatre, re-enactments, site-specific and participatory forms.
We investigate the dissolution and the boundaries of the autobiographical and the fictional, presentation and representation in acting as a moveable assemblage figure situated as a multilayered scenery with an ensemble of collaborators.
Through readings and conversations with international collaborators we found that the traditional dualism between dramatic acting as representation and performance as presentation is misleading when it comes to the contemporary actor. The contemporary actor may easily represent a character while simultaneously putting his or her own personality at the centre. As such, an interactive relationship between performance and representation characterises the work of the contemporary actor who is in a position in-between presentation and representation, using both tools, not either-or, but both-and. Traditionally representation is linked to the ”as if” mode while performance is linked to authenticity. This is, however, also misleading since it is precisely in the space in-between the ”fake” and the authentic that the contemporary actor lives. The carousel concept is a tool to rehearse this performance mode. The interlocking serial improvisation structure of the carousel makes it a useful methodology to test the third in-between mode of performance as traffic and encounters between acting techniques: The Nomadic Actor.
Inspired by our collaboration, by the practical work with the carousel improvisation, by the theories of the nomadic subject (Rosi Braidotti) and disincarnation, and by my experience as an actor, we developed the term the nomadic actor. The nomadic actor is an example of how disincarnation can be applied to the practice of the carousel and how the resonance between the carousel concept and the theoretical concept of disincarnation makes new terminologies and images possible.
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Background
The idea for the carousel concept is based on my artistic practice as an actor at Theater am Turm (TAT) in Frankfurt and Theater Basel with the director Elke Lang and on my work with the students at The Danish National School of Performing Arts.
Lang used the carousel improvisation as a tool that gives us as actors material so we could live on stage as well as gather play material for our roles.
Material that you cannot plan or develop or think out in your head or on paper but material that is generated by chance in the carousel-encounters.
The form of Lang’s carousel improvisation was inspired and renewed by the circular dramaturgy of Arthur Schnitzler’s play Der Reigen (La Ronde) from 1897.
When we started mapping my form of the carousel training in 2018, Mette asked me:
What Is the carousel?
I answered:.
It is a big mess, a lot of fun, and deeply existential. It is a serious game and it produces meaning.
After re-visiting the carousel practice through different theoretical, artistic and esthetical approaches during the research phase I could gradually develop a comprehensible configuration for the carousel concept:
The carousel is a serial improvisation staged as an event in 4 acts to train the contemporary actor/student.
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Concept
There are many ways of acting and many ways of being an actor and acting depending on the individual personality and expression range of the particular actor/student.
The carousel concept aims to train the contemporary actor/ student in order to explore basic acting techniques and the connection between self, role, and other. Rather than focusing on one singular method the carousel concept is a training tool that trains various acting techniques which allows to experience personal ways to work and navigate on stage. An awareness about an interactive relationship between performance and representation characterises the work of the actor/student in the carousel practice. The configuration of the Carousel Concept is equivalent to the synergetic production process of a performance.
The carousel concept articulates the ontology of the stage.
A knowledge of life and the relation between the participants and the space on stage, which allows the students to experience ways of being in the carousel.
What is being on stage? Who am I on stage? Who am I together with the others?
How do I work as an actor? How do I work together with the others, the group?
How do I experience my own identity on stage? Who is watching me?
The act and process of the actor is creation and presentation simultaneously. The performance of the actor cannot be separated from the individual personality of the actor.
The carousel concept addresses the dilemma of how an actor can engage in diverse identities, aesthetics, and expression forms without losing ground.
The carousel concept can be seen as a learning space for the contemporary acting student where he or she is able to understand how to shift between role and self.
The students train shifting between different performance modes such as representation and presentation and learn to handle the position of being an actor and the position of being a performer simultaneously through biographical and fictional elements. This experience helps the acting students learn how to take responsibility and authorship of their own biography. They become aware of and able to develop ways to organize and transform their own biography into play situations in the open encounters with each other in the carousel improvisation
An experience, that allows the students to unfold their own way of acting and developing a feeling about how things happen.
This also develops his or her competence to tell and act as well as his or her independence as an actor.
The advantage and pleasure of this methodology is the explorative nature, that it is investigating and self-interrogating which creates basis for further research.
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1. WHAT`S THIS ABOUT?
A Practice of Life in Performing Arts
3. KNOWLEDGE & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
