Week 4 - European Traditions

During the lecture today, we continued to explore the European traditions of physical theatre, but we began to look into things such as clarity and scale. We were also introduced to the different techniques created by French practitioner Etienne Decroux, and began to explore his method of ‘corporeal mime’. We also touched back on Rudolf Van Laban and some of his theoretical techniques and theories we had explored in the previous lecture.

Once the lecture commenced, we began by doing a full body warm up, which included things such as rotation of the different body parts and shape making. As we were continuing on from the previous lecture (where we had first began exploring European studies), our warm up contained elements of Laban’s theories and allowed us to refresh our memories on some of the main European traditions, such as Laban’s effort actions (sometimes referred to as Laban Movement Analysis). This is a ‘theoretical and experiential system for the observation, description, prescription, performance, and interpretation of human movement’ (Konie, 2011). The warm up that we did linked to the eight effort actions that Laban introduced, which includes:

-          Dabbing

-          Flicking

-          Wringing

-          Slashing

-          Thrusting

-          Punching

-          Floating

-          Gliding

After we had completed the warm up, we began looking at Etienne Decroux and his development of the dramatic technique of corporeal mime. Corporeal mime is a theoretical technique that allows the ‘practitioner to learn, through a unique vocabulary how to express theatrically human behaviour from its most practical aspects to its more abstract and spiritual ones.’ (Theatre de l'Ange Fou, 2016). 
A technique that is often associated with corporeal mime is body segmentation, a principle that grants the ability to move one body part at a time. Decroux believed that this technique was effective when thinking about the body because for this to happen, the rest of the body must agree not to move and stay stationary, he felt that this allowed actors to deeply consider the different ways they can move individual parts of the body. We began looking at this exercise when we explored the three planes of motion and the anatomical structure of the body and its appearance. This involved us exploring the division of the human body and looking at the different parts we could move. Each part also has a specific term to describe it. These parts are:

-          HEAD+ neck = HAMMER

-          HAMMER + chest = BUST

-          BUST + waist = TORSO

-          TORSO + hips = TRUNK

-          The entire body = EIFFEL TOWER

Example of Corporeal Mime 

In this exercise, we rotated a specific body part to a 45 degree angle and practiced moving through the different levels, experimenting how easily it was to do this. For example, we would move the head (hammer) in one direction and the torso (trunk) in the other. “A simple design is, for example, an inclination sideways, or an inclination backward, or a rotation. Man naturally mixes these things, especially when he is excited, or moves with resistance, or turns quickly” (Decroux, 1963: p.79).

The exercises for the principle of body segmentation in Corporeal Mime technique are called ‘scales’. We spent this session exploring the different types of scale and the process involved to create one. Once we had the basics established, we found that the exercises can be performed in many different ways. The following is an example of a basic scale:

BASIC SCALE- one block, at a time, moves one eighth of a circle and stops its motion, then comes back to the neutral position. The following block moves one eighth of a circle and stops. Then comes back to the neutral position, i.e. HEAD – NEUTRAL – HAMMER – NEUTRAL – BUST – NEUTRAL…

During this exercise, we were put into pairs, and each pair had to come up with two different scales for the other person to complete. These scales could vary in duration and difficulty, but the main objective of the session was to explore the different types of scale, and what body parts were able to move together in an effective way. Decroux ‘wanted to explore the full expressive potential of the body and give it a three-dimensional form.’ (Involuntary Movement, 2012). By doing this exercise, I felt that we were able to express the different bodily movements and we were able to convey the different types of scales, and the effect they would have in performance material. 
During this exercise, there was no speech involved, with a sketch of the created scale all we could use when completing the task. This meant that we were unable to verbally communicate to our partner what steps we wanted them to follow, we were only able to follow the sketched design created by our partner. This was a challenging task because it meant that we had to use our knowledge of Decroux’s ideology to re-enact our partners created scale without them giving us verbal guidance, although I feel we were all successful in completing this.

Reference List

Involuntary Movement (2012). Involuntary movement: Corporeal mime - "The art of the thinking body". [online] Available at: http://involuntarymovement.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/corporeal-mime-art-of-thinking-body.html (Accessed: 12 April 2016)

Konie, R. (2011). A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF LABAN MOVEMENT ANALYSIS. 1st ed. [ebook] CLMA, p.1. Available at: http://www.movementhasmeaning.com/wp.../09/LMA-Workshop-Sheet.pdf (Accessed: 11 April 2016).

Theatre de l’Ange Fou (2016) Theatre de l’Ange Fou - what is corporeal mime. Available at: http://www.angefou.co.uk/corporealmime.html  (Accessed: 11 April 2016).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ovSwkUVevE (Accessed: 23 April 2016)