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De teloorgang geldt niet alleen bij Beeldende Kunst maar ook bij Theater en andere disciplines. Er is wel een onderscheid tussen theatermaken+docentschap en uitvoerend acteur, danser. De eerst ingezette achteruitgang in omvang en belang van ambachtelijke vakken als mime, dans, acteren, muziek, zijn steeds meer merkbaar en zichtbaar. Het lijkt erop dat er ook bij uitvoerende podium kunsten vooral ingezet wordt op eigen concept en enkelvoudige stijl of kunnen voor specifieke uitvoeringen. Bij maken en docentschappen is het uitvoerende helemaal naar de achtergrond verdwenen en zijn vakken als mime, dans, muziek, acteren en vertellend theater alleen in geringe mate als trainingen aanwezig. De student hoeft niet meer te kunnen acteren, musiceren, regisseren, dansen, mimespelen maar moet meteen een eigen opvatting en conceptuele ideeen kunnen vormgeven voor groepen mensen in de samenleving.
Zo goed als de illustratieve schilder of beeldende kant bij de beeldende kunst naar de achtergrond is verdwenen zo is de theater spelende en verhalende kant niet meer gewent bij de HBO theater en maken (Docent Theater) en zie je ook dat de verdieping en training als danser bij de Docent Dans in vergelijking met 5 jaar geleden ver achterblijft. Er zijn minder specialisten en minder vakkrachten: docenten trainen niet meer maar begeleiden de student in zijn eigenheid.
Ik ben zelf van een generatie mime acteurs die het ambacht als belangrijkste zagen. We zagen ons niet zozeer als kunstenaar maar meer als een vakman. Trainen en discipline werd als hoogste goed gezien. En hoe gaat dit met kunst hoeden? De kunst hoeden betekent dat de instituten die zich met kunst bezighouden dit bewaren, bewaken en doorgeven. Het gaat hier om kunstonderwijs en musea en theaters. Is het kunst hoederschap in deze tijd afgelopen? Is er nog wel plaats voor experimentele kunst?
Het is een mime mantra. Volgens Thomas Leabhart bleef Etienne Decroux dit nadrukkelijk zeggen in zijn lessen mime corporel. De pause moet niet worden gezien als loslaten,
Wat pause wordt genoemd is een stop - inhouden van een beweging, freeze tijdens de beweging in ontwikkeling, m.a.w. de spanning moet behouden blijven! Voor degenen die de view points vanuit mime kennen hebben we het dan over het stop motion principe: geen beweging zonder stop en andersom. Ik pas stop motion als zeer elementair toe in de mime les methodiek om in het hier en nu te kunnen acteren met je fysiek. Er zijn talloze variaties zoals verschillende snelheden lopen, vallen-opstaan, in een stroom vertellen met eigen stem, met fluisteren en zingen, met een explosie vertrekken, met slowmotion ea.
Het gewicht laten zien en daarbij ook de tegenkracht is vanzelfsprekend voor ieder die wel eens mime acteren heeft gezien. In pantomime zit het nadrukkelijk illustratief: je laat door de tegenkracht de zwaarte van bijvoorbeeld een denkbeeldige koffer die je optilt, zien. Ook bij moderne dans kom je dit principe tegen in bijvoorbeeld de Martha Graham contraction techniek.
nadrukkelijk toe te passen om zo alle interessante variaties op te zoeken en te laten zien. Plane is de verandering in het vlak: draaien dus! helemaal of in geisoleerde delen van het lijf.
Change Level is het niveau omhoog of naar beneden: er zijn verschillende niveaus op de grond, op de knieen, helemaal plat, en verschillende niveaus vanaf de voeten met gebogen knieen.
Natuurlijk zijn hier dan nog niet de mogelijke veranderingen in lateraal vlak en in de diepte benoemd: ook hier kun je de variaties opzoeken en laten zien: naar voren, naar achteren, opzij.
Thomas Leabhart told us those words came from his teacher Etienne Decroux (workshop Zoom July 16 Pacific time 9.00hours from California USA). To illustrate the statement he did the triple designs with buste and ending with the tour Eiffel: Right - right - forward and tour Eiffel forward, or left right forward and tour Eiffel forward. Putting a story to it, you are surprised to find for example a small dog there on the floor. Of course those triple disigns can go backward as well: left-left-backward and tour Eiffel backward. When you put a story to that design it looks like you do a mediation-thought as you focus and line of the triple design is upwards.
of abstract mimetheater, vergelijk ik vaak met associatief denken - het publiek maakt zijn eigen verhaal en ziet er heel veel verhalen in. Oudere mensen plakken er verhalen van de oorlog op en jongere generaties zien er heel concreet dichtbij verhalen in van aantrekken en afstoten en drama soaps van televisie. je kunt ook denken aan De Stijl: Theo van Doesburg schilderde eerst een koe in het weiland realistisch en begon van daaruit studies te maken: eerst werd het kubisme met allemaal kleur vlakken en lijnen en daarna werd het zijn - De Stijl (of ook wel Bauhaus kunst) met alleen nog lijnen. De koe in het weiland is niet meer te herkennen, maar als je er een verhaal bij zoekt, dan is ie er weer.
en hij maakt na ons potje schaak, een beeld van klei. Matthias is er ook maar even naar de winkel met Emmy. Hun kleinere 2 ling zussen Anne Linde en Vera Mara werken ook aan tafel met klei. Er ligt allerlei gereedschap voor op tafel, snij draad, klei plamuurmessen van hout, spatels en een grote chamotte klei brood. Teun is klaar: hij heeft een olifant gemaakt zegt ie, en begint over zijn creatie te lachen terwijl ie het zegt. Realistisch is de olifant niet, maar ik vind 'em best heel goed gelukt. Een titel erbij zetten helpt om de associatie over het beeld - betekenis richting te geven. Je verzint een verhaal bij het beeld, niet andersom. We luisteren naar muziek, de muziekcompositie van Breekbaar mime+danstheater waarvoor ik alle composities maakte in beweging. We horen achtereenvolgens 3 portretten in geluidseffecten van voetstappen, ritssluitingen, brekende takjes, glaswrijven, piepjes, ademhalingen, scheurgeluiden, krakende planken, fluittonen, vogelgeluiden van kraaien en merels, wind, schuurgeluiden, uitroepen, neerzet en valgeluiden, en meer. Wat kwam eerst de geluidscomposities of de beweging? Ik maakte eerst de 3 portretten in geluids effecten en voegde veel geluiden achter elkaar met een zekere dynamiek erin zodat door de lengte, herhaling, tijd, een patroon hoorbaar werd die associatief met de persoon-danser-mimespeler voor ogen een typerende en persoonlijke motoriek en beweging concreet maakte.
'What is your critique of Corporeal Mime', Thomas Leabhart asks me. Stiff he says before he lets me answer. I can not other that acknowledge and add in response: yes and not breathing. Especially in the beginning of mime in the Netherlands, we found it stiff and not breathing, not expressing, robotlike. 'Since mid 60th I worked on exact opposite: it take years and age...' he says.
I am quoting Leabhart here from his Zoom video class July 15, 2023. Then he asks me 'What is this called?' as he makes a triple design with his head(rotation/lateral inclination and inclination forward) and gesturing with hands and arms to the rest of his body. 'It is called the bottle. If the head moves, the bottle seems unmobile. But it is not! It is moving on inside: there are lines of force working on and breathing.'
De expositie is een groeps expositie met Yvonne Evers, Emmy Chau, Feilin Han, opening Sjoerd Schwibettus op zondagmiddag 2 juli 2023.
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| Zet er een lijstje om heen en dan wordt het kunst |
Het 'change plain and level' - principe is in deze openingsact toegepast omdat de lijnen van de verschillende lijstjes andere perspectieven geven als je met ze speelt in de ruimte door draaiingen en niveaus en het lichaam door de lijstjes kruipt, stapt, aantrekt. Als 2 identieke lijstjes van 30-40cm worden gebruikt ontstaat er een continue tekening in de ruimte in 3d en wordt het extra spannend als het lichaam zich door de krappe maat zich er door heen wurmt. Er ontstaan associatief vanuit de beweging en de posities allerlei associaties in verhaal: zo lijkt het alsof het lijstje een vreemd soort jas wordt als je 'em aantrekt en lijkt het een kleine goederenlift als je er laag bij de grond instapt en de lijst naar boven verplaatst of het wordt een raam dat je opent en waar je doorheen reikt. In het mime theater wordt vooral vanuit de beweging als onderwerp een verhaal gebouwd, meestal associatief en thematisch gericht. De beweging zelf is de Protagonist. In het Aristoteliche verhaal (Griekse drama)is de Protagonist de held van het verhaal met wie we ons identificeren en die door zijn Tragic Flaw ten val komt. De Tragic Flaw is een vaak een karaktertrek die hem tenslotte de kop kost. Er zijn verschillende invloeden in het verloop van het verhaal: Na de expositie is het motorische moment de sleutel die het verloop in werking zet en in de ontwikkeling speelt Deux ex Machina een belangrijke rol: de invloed van buitenaf, de 'goddelijke ingreep', toeval of anderszins laat het verhaal een andere weg inslaan welke ja anders niet verwacht zou hebben in het eerst ingezette verloop. Nog steeds is in het zgn repertoire toneel, oftewel het representatie theater, en ook in de filmwereld en in de literaire wereld-het geschreven boek, het Aristotelische concept voor het verloop van het verhaal een uitdrukkelijk uitgangspunt en gegeven. Het mime theater staat hier haaks op en hanteert veelal andere uitgangspunten in het maakproces en voor het publiek. Veranderingen van perspectief, het hier en nu, beweging als protagonist zijn de belangrijkste, waardoor het publiek als vanzelf verstoord of in de war gebracht, zelf gaat associeren. Mensen vragen vaak naar de bedoeling en vertellen dan wat ze zelf voor verhaal hadden bedacht terwijl ze keken. Dat is prachtige feedback. Het laat ook zien dat ieder persoonlijk eenzelfde mime of fysiek theater anders interpreteert.
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| Dreams of zebra and man |
| 'Dream of Zebra and Man' is een imposant stuk: lino druk van 225 x 145 cm papier. Er is ongelooflijk veel dichtheid, iedereen zit op elkaar, lopen bijna over elkaar heen, zitten in elkaars weg, het lijkt op een volkstelling maar er zijn zebra's overal en ieder individu lijkt te dromen of te verlangen, dream is in verschillende talen Chinees, Engels, Nederlands op of bij hoofden geschreven, in karakters erbij of erin vermeld. De zebra is het enige paardsoort die niet te temmen is. Gaat het hier over vrijheid, vluchtelingen? De terra cotta figuren aan weerszijden zijn 'opgehangen' en lijkt te verwijzen naar oorlog en strijd, de figuren onder het papier lijken wachters. De hoeveelheid figuren lijkt eindeloos, buiten de tijd en toch zijn allen gevangen. | ||
Muziek die gebruikt wordt is een compositie Dubbelgeluk van Jaap Berends=gitaar met Sarah Walder-cello,
Tessa Zoutendijk-viool en Tjerk van der Ham-accordeon
De geluidseffecten compositie, de tekst en de installatie is van Sjoerd Schwibettus.
ga naar https://forms.gle/4WqnifBasqbQ3QPy9 voor kaarten en reserveren
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| reserveren noodzakelijk op pauline@walkingfaces.nl |
"De zeldzame keer dat ik persoonlijk geraakt wordt, weet ik niet wat ik moet doen: het besef dat ik het niet weet, dat mijn ogen naar binnen glijden en struikelen over het moment.....dat ik het niet weet.....
Het doorgronden begint dan: op zoek naar de binnenkant, naar het moment waar het begon, waar je naar terug verlangt." (teksten voorstelling ontstaan vanuit de toevallig aanwezige krant in repetities)
Walking Faces - Mime Oost maakt lijfelijke poëzie. De sculptuur van de mens is uitgangspunt, living statues, het zgn. statuaire mobile. Het bewegingspel is intiem, persoonlijk, jong en oud, een helder verhaal, mimearticulaties en slapstick. De beeldende installatie bestaat uit verschillende onderdelen van een opengezaagde en verbouwde Weber pianola met luchtslangen. De toetsen hangen in de lucht in de de golfvorm van een ruggengraat. Marten Vellema maakte hiervoor een compositie en speelt live ook de hangende toetsen en op eigen toetsenbord/piano. De mechaniek is als een grote muziekdoos en met DE TIJD verbonden: alles piept, en knarst, zuigt en draait, Het is ook een metafoor voor het menselijk lichaam met asjes, draadjes, hamerslagen, adem, actie, reactie en het klavier als ruggengraat.
"De nieuwsgierigheid maakt altijd dat ik wil weten hoe het werkt. ook toen al als kleine jongen haalde ik de Hema wekker uit elkaar om binnenin te kijken. En dan ging ie ook weer helemaal in elkaar. Altijd bleef er dan een onderdeeltje over, toch werkte ie weer maar dan anders." (Sjoerd Schwibettus, maker van installatie en mime compositie)
De compositie is mede gebaseerd op mime etudes die met Claire Heggen in Parijs in samenwerking met Sjoerd Schwibettus en Anoushka Wielink in 2015 zijn ontstaan. Deze etudes zijn na 2015 niet verder uitgevoerd. Met de volmaking van het installatiebeeld dat oorspronkelijk al voor idee scenario en compositie van het mimespel werd bedacht en geinitieerd, kwam het mime materiaal tot leven in 2018 met Steef Kersbergen.
Why
bother about bodies? – All too long science has been avoiding this area of
whole body language. Too complex? Now it is evident that the body is as
reliable as the face in expressing emotions and of course the body carries
information, intentions and actions. As dancers and especially mime actors
realize and know since long, body
language is a convincing speaking medium and the body or mind has a voice of
its own. Subtext, emotions, taboos, secret information all is shared
consciously or inconsciously: the body cannot lie! When we connect with eachother,
talking or taking position as human beings, we change level and plane in a constant flux. As if
every moment relies on strategy how to behave in corresponding or to measure
yourself or level with one another. I
started out on a queeste and researched facial and whole body emotion expressions
– All the scources here are adding information on how the gesture and body
language is working. I believe that every emotion expression has its own special
architectonics: Happy must have a strong upwards and forwards forming
trajectory in movement articulations for instance and probably (like a smile) the process and posture of the expression will not sustain long and be over in a short span of time. But then Disgusted will show a lot more counterforce and to construct its posture will be slow in building with going backward inclinations and off turning away to get as much distance from the source. As there are at least 21 expressions of emotion which we universally
can recognize: what construction would go for Awed or Disgusted-Surprised?
Architectonics and dynamo-rhythm are in a way the same thing. Here, in paper 3, I look at jabbertalk and children songs, soundpoems and the contineous motricity they share. And I look into soul emotions and formal emotions. When I discovered Psychomotor Aestheatics of Ana Hedberg Olenina (movement and affect in modern literature), and Bernstein’s Construction of Movements, it opened a new world of ideas on movement and it sheds light and context to the corporeal mime. Internal music (as Decroux would call it) is needed to get the movement its authentic sparkle and dynamo-rhythm. Music connects people because together they can experience the shared rhythm of time. I looked especially at BACS and BEAST and I looked into internal music - speech and sound, and corporeal mime.
At the end The dance of 6 emotion expressions of postures is shown in one video with 4 different actors: part of the research we undertake to see how a whole body expression of emotion is building itself.
JABBERTALK AND THE MUMBLING MAN
Inner form, internal music, from inside, soul emotion, intonation, ‘cathedral’ and construction, architectonics, trajectory- all those words refer to the inner self or the presence at that moment, and contain a certain attitude or impuls to reveal in action its construction and the how to form it. The 'zero' of Decroux seems to refer to this as well. The standing up positions of Decroux are different ways to start the action, not yet...but getting ready and in tune with the context.
Jabbertalk or nonsense language is used in performances like clowning or Commedia dell’arte. It enables us to go away from text and connect with the inner music while acting and it gives the actor a means to express him or herself on a more transcending level. It connects breathing, puls-hearthbeat, emotion with the body.
The sounds do not get their meaning from recognizable language but from intonation, volume and body language. 'Jabbertalk' or 'gibberish' in French 'gromelot' can contain sounds but also not open sounds: scouring, clattering, rasping, scraping, throat sounds, cheek vibrations, nose vibrations You can also add accents in language color from Italian to Arabic language, Swedish, Latin etc. Gerard Tholen was known in Netherlands to speak many tongues: he could imitate foreign languages without knowledge of the language itself.
Practicing or using it in acting one's whole body will comply and it is actually expressing a whole range of body language one normally often reduces or withholds when speaking normally. It also provides a continuous stream, 'going with the flow' state in which all is working together in following the trajectory of the intonation, speed, impetus, rhythm. The stream is not conceived, it arises at that moment, you discover that the vibration can be even deeper and longer and you are tempted to act on it without thinking about what it means. It is. It leads you to a sequel, the construction already takes place on the way. Letting go is the most important thing here and at the same time, of course, shifting the concentration to how you produce the sounds and follow up in that.
With Bogner and with Commedia dell'arte peformance work but also in my mime classes this material of jabbertalk in one or other forms was used in the clown or mime performance.
In children's rhymes or songs, one can often feel the connection with this level of speech: children's rhymes and songs, will accentuate or invite, stimulate the bodily action with it and usually as it is sung, it will evoke accompanying movement. As in:
Hickory, dickory, dock. The mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one, The mouse ran down, Hickory, dickory, dock.
And in If you’re happy and you know it, stamp your feet: Two Little Feet Go Stamp Stamp etc. Also the famous dr Seuss with its Sam do you like green eggs and ham appeals to corporeal activity. Paul van Ostayen is known with his:
MARC GREETS THINGS IN THE MORNING
Hi
boy with the bike on the vase on the bloom hi fisher-of -fish with cap
ploom
ploom cap
and pipe
hi chair by the table of the fisher-of-fish
hi bread on the table H i i i —i fish
hi fisher-of-fish with the pipe hi little fish
and hi tiny fishy-fine of mine
To show an emotion is not acting. If an actor presents his individual emotion it is representation. Whereas every action, movement in a whatever stylized form that incorporates speed, dynamics, space, counterweight, weight, rhythm and articulation, it will appeal to an emotion of the audience.
In method acting and in acting neutrally, the first is finding inspiration and codification in another human’s character and way of doing and the latter is finding it in the actor as himself.
When neutral acting began to become a certain style and trend, sometimes the speech-text and diction in the acting was actual not understood by the audience while it mumbled the whole time and performed on purpose without diction and volume.
Imagine a mumbling man speaking his words and thoughts and doing his actions more on the inside than performed for an audience, where the text is projected to get the message through space. It is wonderful to imagine how such a character goes through every day life: non stopping inwardly speaking, mumbling, cursing, not being censured but then nobody will complain while it is not spoken aloud, it stays inside like a contineous motricity. This can easily be distinguished as one of the zero energy states Decroux is speaking of. Ot= Onafhankelijk Theater (Independent Theater)company introduced this style of acting. The 'below zero' which fascinates Marijn de Lange so much is another: Nieuw West was a mime company eager to present non theater, using story and text and introduced this concept below zero to elaborate corporeal mime. Marijn de Lange – is mostly focussed on that below zero, Her book reads like a novel, following the 2 friends (of mime company Nieuw West later) being naive in the world of art, their discoveries of mime, art and theater. Nieuw West company was certainly exiting and its best performances and non theater outbursts were showing the paradox between mime – dance and theater with a social world. Statements were dadaistic and confrontational. It was a happening.
Vsevolod Emilyevich Meyerhold 1874 – 1940 was a Russian and Soviet theater director and theatrical producer. His provocative experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theater setting made him one of the seminal forces in modern international theater. During the Great Purge, Meyerhold was arrested, tortured and executed in February 1940.
According to Meyerhold, the art of making theater was constructivist. He emphasized non-naturalistic play and abstracted, industrial-looking decors. Constructivism is the natural development of the tendency towards abstraction and the search for new methods of artistic performance. This movement is characteristic of early twentieth-century Russia. It was the official art movement of the Russian Revolution from 1917 to 1921.
Étienne Decroux (1898-1991) was a French actor who studied at Jacques Copeau's École du Vieux-Colombier, where he saw the beginnings of what was to become his life's obsession –corporeal mime. During his long career as a film and theater actor, he created many pieces, using the human body as the primary means of expression. Corporeal mime is an aspect of physical theater whose objective is to place drama inside the moving human body, rather than to substitute gesture for speech as in pantomime . In this medium, the mime must apply to physical movement those principles that are at the heart of drama: pause, hesitation, weight, resistance and surprise. Corporeal mime accentuates the vital importance of the body and physical action on stage. Étienne Decroux’s dramatic corporeal mime is taking the body as a main means of expression and the actor as a starting point for creation with the aim of “making the invisible visible” (Étienne Decroux), of allowing the actor to show thought movement. It was developed primarily by Etienne Decroux, who was heavily influenced by his training with Jacques Copeau at the Ecole du Vieux-colombier. He created this method and technique for creative performers wishing to transform their ideas into a physical reality.
ARCHITECTONICS
In her book Psychomotor Aesthetics: Movement and Affect in Modern Literature and Film Ana Hedberg Olenina discusses Boris Eikhenbaum. His work and publications get a lot of attention describing formal emotions and embodiment. Being a member of OPOLAZ group and among the Formalists, Ana Hedberg Olenina states Eikenbaum was the first to address the issue of emotion itself;
It prompted him to distinquish ‘soul emotions’ and ‘formal emotions’
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| Composition VIII (De koe, cow, Theo van Doesburg 1918 |
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| preliminary study for Composition VIII - De koe |
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| preliminary study for Composition VII - De koe |
We must understand the analysis of poetry by the Formalists as an embodiment of architectonics. Hence: the expressivity of poetry exists in the combination of time, rhythm, and intonation by means of the vocular muscles with troath, lips, mouth, jaw, tongue
Exciting: if we lay out definitions and insights along the concept of the so called dynamo-rhythm of Decroux there is no escape to understand the parallel in it.
DYNAMO-RHYTHM
From her article in 2013, Alaniz, Leela –‘The Dynamo-rhythm of Etienne Decroux and His Successors’, I summarize:
Decroux’s almost sixty years of research, performance and teaching engaged him foremost in research to discover the potential for corporeal movement. Among other things, he researched the joints, weight and counter-weight, strength, speed, impetus, muscular respiration, muscular tension, relaxation and resistance. By using the tools of Corporeal Mime centered on himself, the actor could create a personal form of theatrical expression. Moreover, Decroux created a system of rules, a working method that allowed the actor to master the technique, but also to create freely and personally. “I desire theater in which the actor...is an instrumentalist of his own body, and everything he does, he does as an artist and not just as an exposition of his personal nature” (Leabhart, “An Interview” 33). In creating his methods and terminology, including the term dynamo-rhythm, Corporeal mime was to replace the theater of his day.
Dynamo-rhythm signifies the collective qualities of physical movements, in all their complexity, which are linked to the outline or trajectory, speed, and force. The expressivity of movement - as opposed to shape - exists in the combination of time, rhythm, and muscular tension.
At this point, Leela Alaniz uses the term rheostat as an analogy with dynamorhythm and defines the link with music:
….rhythm ….implies the idea of circulation. Moreover, dynamo-rhythm entails a play of force, of energy that uses resistance, just like a rheostat used to enhance or reduce the intensity of light in an electric light bulb.’
During an interview in 1978 (Thomas Leabhart), Decroux explained:
So, I repeat: intonation, speed and power.... In place of intonation, we have the outline. We could even say though it complicates things a little, the trajectory.
….It is probably because often the power is directly united to the speed. There are instances when one cannot measure the speed of a violent movement. Therefore, we use the term dynamo-rhythm: that is union coincidence between the speed and the force.
Decroux taught dynamo-rhythm with stories, methaphors, and also with singing, with vibrations produced by the voice on a scale of melodic tones corresponding to the intensity of the muscular resistance he wanted pupils to obtain in their movements: the more intense the vibration and the tone low-pitched, the stronger the muscular. Leabhart recalls Decroux's integration of voice and movement: "The voice and the body: he sang the exercises that he thaught. He showed us the way the voice vibrates. One understood that the gesture vibrated, beginning in the muscle. Decroux sang accompanying the students's movement resistance. " (interview) Decroux knew that dynamo-rhythm could not be learnt by copying exterior form, but only by work inside the body. So that his students could feel the movements more deeply, inside their muscular fibres, he touched them while they were performing the movements.
“To fully understand Decroux’s relation to the “internal music” (essential to his work), we return to Copeau’s consideration of Dalcroze rhythmic gymnastics as less helpful in actor training than Hebert’s work.
Dalcroze’s students seemed dependant on audible music to support their movement, while Copeau wanted actors to respond to music heard within. This inner music appropriately portrayed thought (the music of Decroux’s “thought” or “meditation” improvisation) or work, for example, the music he sang as we performed counterweight exercises and pieces based on work movements, such as the Washerwoman and the Carpenter. This “music” was a sonorous equivalent for the muscle vibration, straining to overcome weight.”
Sculpture fascinated Decroux as it represented an oeuvre made through the work of an artist’s hands, albeit with the help of tools. For him, materialization-- the fact that the artist made an idea tangible-- represented the major aspect of this art. Decroux identified “dynamic immobility” as a fundamental type of dynamo-rhythm. He believed that a body only appeared immobile, but that many interior forces always worked in opposition. (Leabhart Words on Mime p 12)
What I have done is to consider the human body as a keyboard—the keyboard of a piano. Of course this is only an analogy. We know that the human body cannot be exactly like a keyboard. On a keyboard we can always isolate one note from another, but we can't isolate the chest from the head. If the chest moves, the head automatically does something. But nevertheless, the thought is there....
So we consider the keyboard as something that should inspire us. Nothing should happen in the body except what is desired and calculated. The actor should bear the relationship to his body that a pianist does to the keyboard. (Leabhart, “An Interview” 32)
NO SUCH THING AS SILENCE In Descent of Man (1871), Darwin elaborated on the idea that the production and appreciation of music would be an element of sexual selection, a variant of natural selection in which pairs prefer each other based on aesthetic characteristics. Music would then help not so much for survival, but for more effective reproduction. Music is a form of play, which, like other artistic expressions in all their forms, styles, colors and techniques, is an essential characteristic of our species. Music is pre-eminently an art form that is experienced collectively. The human capacity for synchronization is absolutely remarkable. Subconsciously we recognize rhythmic patterns and conform to them. It connects people because together they can experience the shared rhythm of time. Our musical memory is phenomenal. After 1 or 2 notes we recognize a song, melody, and we can already move and sing along. We can almost mindlessly, even with an unknown song, tap into the rhythm.
Walter van Dyke Bingham argued in his ‘Studies in Melody’ (1910) that our experience of unity and coordination in a succession of musical notes also has cycles of muscular strain and relaxation at its basis. Bingham maintained that the rise of the pitch is experienced by the listener as an increase in the straining of the vocal apparatus. Each note triggers a ‘motor disposition or attitude’ – an emotion of expectation. If the final note in the series coincides with the first one, the listener will feel muscular resolution signaling for him that what he just had heard was a complete whole. After this study Bingham would go on to become one of the pioneers of applied psychology in the field of professional aptitude testing.
Music originates in the brain. It is a perceptual construct in which the brain brings structure and order to the sounds we hear. The cerebellum synchronizes rhythms, the amygdala provides emotion, and the cortex provides structure and also melody. We perceive rhythm everywhere and reward ourselves with dopamine when we notice surprising deviations. We experience music with our whole body and this physical factor also explains the emotional impact. Music causes an internal physical state that we then recognize as emotion. As William James knew, emotions are a cognitive processing of internal bodily states. Organized sound can also be silence. John Cage organized that silence as music in his "4'33" - a controversial and influential composition in the history of music. In 1952, David Tudor played "4'33" for the first time: he came up, sat behind the piano, closed the lid and looked at the clock on the piano. Twice over the next 4 minutes he opened the cover and closed it again, carefully without making a sound. Meanwhile, he turned the pages of the score, on which there were no notes. Everything that could be heard in the meantime was part of the composition. After 4 minutes and 33 seconds, the performance was over. Applause.
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a cyclogram of cutting metal with a chisel and hammer. Aleksei Gastev in thelaboratory of the Central Institute of Labor. 1922-1924 (free domain-wikipedia- https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nikolai_Bernstein) |
CYCLOGRAM
A cyclogram techniques were used to track human movement. Electrographic recordings were printed to get a schematic movement notation. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bernstein (Russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Бернште́йн; 5 November 1896 – 16 January 1966) was a Sovjet neurophysiologist. He was born and died in Moscow. Bernstein was a Russian scientific researcher studying movement during manual labor in Moscow’s Central Institute of Labour to optimize productivity. He was one of the pioneers of motor control and motor learning.
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Walking cyclogram - http://a-mov.ru/books/ bernstein-biomehanika-dlja-instruktorov/009.html Pic. 62.Marey’s walking cyclogram. The subject is moving from left to right. Movements of head, right hand and right leg were filmed |
There are obviously
many consistent and sterotypical patterns of kinematics and muscle activation.
The analysis of coordinated movements became the study of biomechanics: it
describes the application of mechanical principles and methods to biological
systems. These involve two areas: kinematics, or time-space forms of
movement such as muscle activation and joint movement; and dynamics, the
physical causes of movements such as inertial or centripetal forces, power
(acceleration) and torque (rotation). The methods of analysis include
electrographic recordings of joint angular velocity and muscle activation, and body diagrams showing body segments and forces acting on them.
His ideas became known to Western sientists when his publication ‘The Co-ordination and Regulation of Movements’ was translated around 1960 in English.
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Compound posture expressions of emotion - subjects were 'dressed' in clay and faces were covered
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B. de Gelder neuroscientist, discussed in her article 'Why bodies' the fact there is actually no historical explanation as to why the body expressions are not given a lot of attention since Darwin's research in 'expressions of man and animals'. In the last decades over 95 percent of social and affective neuroscience have used faces as stimuli. Paul Ekman studied at the start of his research into emotion expressions the recognition of emotion from bodily expressions but put that aside, probably because the first results were too poor and the chances to find evidence for emotion expression as being universal were better with the face.
Of course the body is as reliable as the face in expressing emotion: The body language does not just complement as a sideline to the face: bodies carry information on emotions, actions and intentions and of course the body has a mind of its own.
BEAST; The Bodily Expressive Action Stimulus is a creation and validation of a stimulus basis for measuring the perception of whole body expressions of emotions. To distinguish the perception of emotion visual data are collected and patterns on body language can be detected.
In the publication of Joseph Walls et al 'Pain communication through body posture'
pain is researched besides the given basic emotion expressions, on its non verbally through facial expressions, vocalizations and bodily movements. Especially the postural display was given attention and resulted in a new stimulus set of dynamic body postures that communicate pain and the 6 basic emotions. There were 3 different groups of participants involved: 16 actors performed affective body postures, and 2 groups of observers independently chose the best reliable images. A final set of 144 images with good reliability was established and made available. Results demonstrate that pain, along with basic emotions, can be communicated through body posture. Cluster analysis demonstrates pain and emotion are recognized with a high degree of specificity. Here are some characterestics as mentioned in the research of Joseph Walls.
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The Bodily Expressive Action Stimulus Test (BEAST). Construction and Validation of a Stimulus Basis for Measuring Perception of Whole Body Expression of Emotions |
Anger Head facing, gaze toward, whole body forward lean, trunk facing, left and right arms front, elbows bent, hands clenched, left and right knees bent 0.936
Disgust Head averted, gaze toward, trunk averted, left and right arms front, palms facing, legs straight 0.874
Fear Head facing, gaze downward, no body lean, trunk facing, knees bent elbows bend, palms facing, knees bent 0.914
Happiness Head facing, gaze upward, no body lean, arms vertical, elbows and knees straight 0.981
Sadness Head facing, gaze downward, forward body lean, left and right arms side, knees bent 0.922
Surprise Head facing, gaze toward, backwards body lean, trunk averted, arms vertical, elbows bent, knees straight
Directed Pain Head averted, gaze downward, forward body lean, trunk facing, elbows bent, arms site, hands manipulate injury site, knees bent 0.953
Undirected Pain Head averted, trunk averted, left and right hands touch to various sites, knee bend, shoulder to front 0.974
E.W. Scripture and William M. Patterson - The Rhythm of Prose, An Experimental Investigation of Individual Difference in the Sense of Rhythm - New york , Colombia University press
The Co-ordination and Regulation of Movements, Pergamon Press (Oxford, 1967) Bernstein's Construction of Movements: Original Text and Commentaries, Routledge (New York and Abingdon, 2020)- https://www.routledge.com/Bernsteins-Construction-of-Movements-The-Original-Text-and Commentaries/Latash/p/book/9780367418922
Bernstein, Nikolai Aleksandrovich - Biomechanics for Instructors, Springer (Switzerland, 2020) translated by Rose Whyman, Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36163-
Bernstein, Nikolai Aleksandrovich - On the Construction of Movements (1946) https://www.culture-of-peace.info/vita/1978/bernstein.pdf
Kyle Gann - No Such Ting as Silence: John Cage’s 4’33 – Yale University Press 2011
Daniel Levitin - Ons muzikale brein: de wetenschap van een menselijke obsessie (vertaling Robert Vernooy) Atlas Contact 2013
Words on mime, Thomas Leabhart, Mime Journal January 1, 1985 - ISBN-10 1961106647
Alaniz, Leela (2013) - The Dynamo-Rhythm of Etienne Decroux and His Successors - Mime Journal: Vol. 24, Article 2. DOI: 10.5642/ mimejournal.20132401.02 - Available at: h=p://scholarship.claremont.edu/mimejournal/vol24/iss1/2
An Interview with Decroux , Mime Journal:Essay on Mime. Ed. Thomas Leabhart. Fayetteville (Ark.): Mime School, Inc., 1974. Print.
21st-CenturyDialogues with Edward Gordon Craig - Mime Journal-Volume 26 - Action, Scene, and Voice: , by Thomas Leabhart or as essay - The Actor and the Über-Marionette - in 'On the Art of the Theatre',
The Body Action Coding System II: muscle activations during the perception and expression of emotion - E.M.J. Huis In ‘t Veld, G.J.M. van Boxtel, and B. de Gelder in Front Behav Neurosci. 2014-Published online 2014 Sep 23. doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00330
The Perception of emotion in body expressions - B. de Gelder, A.W. de Borst and R. Watson- Focus publication Volume 6, March/Apri l 2015 WIREsCogn Sci 2015, 6:149–158. doi: 10.1002/wcs. 1335
Psychomotor Aesthetics: Movement and Affect in Modern Literature and Film Ana Hedberg Olenina ISBN-13: 9780190051259-Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2020-DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190051259.001.0001 Zaum: https://slavischestudies.wordpress.com/tag/zaum/
Theo van Doesburg - Grondbegrippen der nieuwe beeldende kunst, SUN, Nijmegen 1983
Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (1893 – 6 December 1984) was a Russian and Soviet literary theorist, critic, writer, and pamphleteer. He is one of the major figures associated with Russian formalism. Viktor Shklovsky's Theory of Prose was published in 1925
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832 –1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the founders of modern psychology. Wilhelm Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, was the first person ever to call himself a psychologist. He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology". In 1879, at University of Leipzig, he founded the first formal laboratory for psychological research.
William James (1842 –1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. He is considered to be one of the most influential phgilosophers of the United States, and the "Father of American psychology". His monumental The Principles of Psychology (1890), gained widespread recognition. Emotions are known through introspection and they appear to us as subjective inner feelings (feelings) was for him an important idea. Originally of course the emotion is not a phenomenon of consciousness, but primarily a physical state caused by an exciting event. Therefore, the reactions of the body deserve further study and not the conscious, subjective feelings. His theory gave an important impetus to experimental empirical research and to more precise research of the central nervous system.
BEAST - de Gelder, B. & Van den Stock, J. (2011). The Bodily ExpressiveAction Stimulus Test (BEAST). Construction and validation of a stimulus basis for measuring perception of whole body expression of emotions. Frontiers in Psychology 2:181. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.0018.
Why bodies? Twelve reasons for including bodily expressions in affective neuroscience - B. de Gelder - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Lond B Biol Sci. 2009 Dec 12; 364(1535): 3475–3484.
Pain communication through body posture: The development and validation of a stimulus set - Joseph Walsh, Christopher Eccleston, Edmund Keogh - Centre for Pain Research, University of Bath, Bath, UK, 18 August 20214
The Bodily Expressive Action Stimulus Test (BEAST) - de Gelder, B. & Van den Stock, J. (2011). The Bodily Expressive Action Stimulus Test (BEAST). Construction and validation of a stimulus basis for measuring perception of whole body expression of emotions. Frontiers in Psychology 2:181. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.0018
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| Dance of 6 emotions: combining 4 study's | |
Dance of 6 emotions@sjoerdschwibettus – research 2021
The live recordings were made with help of actors Nick, Gerben, Nina, Keedie.
Every individual shows its own dynamics in expressing an emotion.
Each emotion expression also has its very own characterestics in dynamic and space and time.
In timing expressions are showing the same tendency in the characterestics of the emotions but the individual influences with his personal dynamics the speed.
In the combined presentation of the study's the expressions of emotion loop forth and backwards. The total film lasts 33 seconds.
- Meaning for instance Nick shows his happy emotion in 6 seconds each = 3 times forward and almost 3 times backwards in 33 seconds (in the last backwards we lack 3 seconds). -
Timing of the subsequent exoressions of emotions:
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actors |
Happy |
Surprised |
Angry |
Fear |
Disgusted |
Sad |
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Nick |
6 |
6 |
14 |
11 |
7 |
6 |
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Gerben |
4 |
8 |
7 |
10 |
6 |
10 |
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Nina |
4 |
6 |
8 |
7 |
8 |
10 |
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Keedie |
5 |
9 |
12 |
10 |
10 |
12 |
