Process of embodiment (physical theatre)

The process of embodiment is a development of a concept in the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others that has found an application in the training of actors. Drawing on phenomenological insights, it attempts to bring body and mind closer together in the performer.

Concept

The term 'embodiment' has had increasing currency since its redefinition in the mid-20th century as theatre practitioners such as Phillip Zarrilli and Erika Fischer-Lichte discovered much common ground between psychophysical training techniques and the phenomenonology of embodiment within modern philosophy.

In his Phenomenology of Perception (translated into English in 1962) Merleau-Ponty argued that people perceive and conceptualize everything bodily. He stipulated that our very consciousness is embodied, abolishing the idea of a separation of mind and body which stretched back to Plato. Drawing directly from Merleau-Ponty's work, Zarrilli talks extensively about psychophysical training as a process of embodiment that gradually refines the "aesthetic bodymind" to "ever-subtler levels of awareness". He also talks about Copeau's work in terms of embodiment:

Copeau was precise about the type of embodied awareness that training should develop in the actor: "What is needed is that within them every moment be accompanied by an internal state of awareness peculiar to the movement being done" (Cole and Chinoy 1970). With each repetition of each exercise, for the nth time, there is this "something more" that can be found in one's relationship to movement. It is repetition per se which leads one, eventually, to the possibility of re-cognize-ing oneself through exercise.

Embodiment is the process of uniting the imaginary separation between body and mind. It is the process within psychophysical training that generates 'presence' on stage. Fischer-Lichte notes that "Barba located presence solely on the pre-expressive level of artistic articulation."(2008, p. 97) The process of embodiment would therefore translate to Barba's techniques for 'pre-expressive' training: "The performer employs specific techniques and practices of embodiment enabling him to generate energy". (2008, p. 98)

Ruffini explains that "In Stanislavski's 'system', the actor's work is work at the pre-expressive level" (Ruffini, 1991, p. 153). Stanislavski's system was concerned with "Construction of the organic body-mind" and achieved it through a process of embodiment where "[t]he actor's body must be trained to respond to every minimal impulse of the mind"(1991, p. 152).

With regards to Grotowski's processes of embodiment, Fischer-Lichte observes that

The actor no longer lends his body to an exclusively mental process but makes the mind appear through the body, thus granting the body agency. In training the actor, Grotowski avoids "[...] teaching him something; we attempt to eliminate his organism's resistance to this psychic process. The result is freedom from the time-lapse between inner impulse and outer reaction in such a way that the impulse is already an outer reaction. Impulse and action are concurrent: the body vanishes, burns, and the spectator sees only a series of visible impulses. Ours then is a via negativa - not a collection of skills but an eradication of blocks. (Grotowski 1968:16) (2008, p. 82)

References

• Dreyfus, H. (1996) 'The Current Relevance of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Embodiment' The Electronic Journal of Analytic Philosophy, Issue 4, no.3 [online] Available at: <http://ejap.louisiana.edu/EJAP/1996.spring/dreyfus.1996.spring.html> [Accessed 9 February 2009].
• Fischer-Lichte, E. (2008) The Transformative Power of Performance. London: Routledge.
• Grotowski, J. (1968) Towards A Poor Theatre. London & New York: Methuen.
• Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002) Translated by Smith, C. Phenomenology of Perception London: Routledge.
• Zarrilli, P. (1995) Acting (re)considered. London: Routledge.
• Zarrilli, P. (2008) Psychophysical Acting London: Routledge.