Psycho-physical Awareness is a popular

acting Acting is an activity in which a story is told by means of its enactment by an actor who adopts a character—in theatre, television, film, radio, or any other medium that makes use of the mimetic mode. Acting involves a broad range of sk ...

technique used in many schools and universities in the

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and

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. This technique works on the relationship between the mind and the body and at developing an

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

’s conscious awareness. In other words, recognizing the resulting sensory and mental states in reaction to physical stimuli. The pioneer of this technique is

Konstantin Stanislavski Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski ( rus, Константин Сергеевич Станиславский, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ stənʲɪˈslafskʲɪj, links=yes; ; 7 August 1938) was a seminal Russian and Sovie ...

who sought to overcome the divisions between “mind from body, knowledge from feeling, analysis from action” through psychophysical training or the method of physical action, but it was Michael Chekhov who further developed an original and dependable method of what we now know to be psycho-physical awareness.

History

Based on the ideas of

, Michael Chekhov developed the technique in order to achieve the highest creative potential by developing extreme sensitivity of the body to the psychological creative impulses. He felt this was imperative in becoming an ‘ideal’ actor. Chekhov developed a series of exercises influenced in part by

Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (; 27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century ...

, which explore a psychophysical approach to training and performing. “If the actor is engaged in the process of imagining through the body, then their sense of ‘self’ is forgotten, and the embodied

imagination Imagination is the production of sensations, feelings and thoughts informing oneself. These experiences can be re-creations of past experiences, such as vivid memories with imagined changes, or completely invented and possibly fantastic scenes ...

alters the psycho physicality to be or become that of the character.” Other notable pioneers and practitioners in this field include Phillip B. Zarrilli and Jerzy Grotowski. Zarilli’s most recent book, Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach after Stanislavski (2008) has been selected for the 2010 Outstanding Book award for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE). Zarilli developed a system of training though

yoga Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...

and Asian martial arts that heightens sensory awareness, dynamic energy, and in which body and mind become one. Jerzy Grotowski is known for using yoga as well as plastiques (a series of strenuous postures, gesture and tumbles) and the use of the whole body as a vocal resonator. He later found that adding human interaction (working with partners) loosened creativity and challenged the body more psychologically. Solo yoga postures he found to be limiting and isolating. An example of plastiques involves the

vertebra Each vertebra (: vertebrae) is an irregular bone with a complex structure composed of bone and some hyaline cartilage, that make up the vertebral column or spine, of vertebrates. The proportions of the vertebrae differ according to their spina ...

extracted from Grotowski’s Towards a Poor Theatre, clarifies the connection between emotional and physical states of the actor. The energy must first start physically within for it to find its way out through expression, thereby engaging the need for psycho-physical awareness. The

vertebral column The spinal column, also known as the vertebral column, spine or backbone, is the core part of the axial skeleton in vertebrates. The vertebral column is the defining and eponymous characteristic of the vertebrate. The spinal column is a segmente ...

is the center of expression. The driving impulse, however stems from the loins. Every live impulse begins in this region, even if it is invisible from the outside. Other physical acting training techniques relative to personal awareness, but not limited to, can be found in the exercises of Moshe Feldenkrais, Kristin Linklater, Cicely Berry and Frederick Matthias Alexander.

References

{{Reflist *Kate Kalin (2007), Psychophysical Training and the Development of Conscious Awareness in the Actor, National University of Ireland, *Cork, Board of Drama & Theatre Studies, pp 6–7 *Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor, Harper & Row Publishing, NY, NY. 1953

* ziecitheatre.org/dzfiles/boss.pdf Acting techniques