Anthropological Theatre Theatre Anthropology

Abrimos hoy esta sección de artículos teóricos sobre teatro vinculados a los criterios de nuestros talleres. Próximamente, nuestro blog se organizará en un capítulo exclusivo para esto y será más cómo de leerlos pero mientras tanto, comenzaremos su publicación.

Para comenzar, un artículo muy interesante para quienes me han preguntado con más detalle acerca de por qué me fui a Bolivia a hacer teatro. Muchas veces uno encuentra las palabras en otro para explicar ciertos fenómenos internos.

Los invitamos a leer más acerca de quienes trabajan en profundidad con esta forma de expresión teatral. Iremos incorporando a esta sección, artículos de nuestra propia traducción para que disfruten, practiquen, reflexionen, duden, piensen y nos cuenten sus impresiones siempre que lo deseen. Los dejamos con nuestra primera entrada:

Contra el Teatro Antropológico, por Diego Starosta en: diegostarosta.blogspot.com

Against Anthropological Theatre

It has been several years now, since Eugenio Barba, the director of Odin Teatret from Denmark, theorist, researcher and one of the world’s most renown masters of universal theatre, first influenced Argentine theatre. Probably ever since this long- lasting influence touched our shores, the interpretations of some his writings, lessons and scenic proposals, have often been unclear or misinterpreted.

The assimilation, study and interpretation of knowledge, experiences and skills is always a fruitful process. Many times, it brings about an enrichment that determines the evolution of the object submitted to these cultural processes. However, it may also bring about several risks, because at other times, these re-readings and practical applications only distort and trivialize the result of the original work. Except for some valuable exceptions, such has been the case in our theatre sphere concerning the definition of Theatre Anthropology and its later use as a tool, as well as its contents and concepts. These misinterpretations have been the result of superficial analysis lacking empirical experience, shallow dealing with the proposed material in the practical work, a lack of information or a mere prejudice.

In the brief lines that follow, I will attempt my opinion on the matter, taking as a standing point my background experience with Guillermo Angelelli, disciple of Iben Nagel Rasmussen, Odin Teatret actress between 1992 and 1994. I will also consider my experience in numerous encounters with Eugenio Barba and the other actors from this Group from the year 1995 up to the present and my experience in almost 20 years as an actor, director and founding teacher of the company El Muererío Teatro.

The first and most noticeable mistake in the referred sense is perhaps the one that somehow determines all the mistakes that follow in both theoretical as well as empirical approaches to Eugenio Barba´s contributions. It is the one that formulates the existence of an “anthropological theatre” or an “anthropological theatre technique”. There is no such theatre that could be defined as “anthropological”. In any case, theatre, as a socio- cultural- historical activity of Man, can be an object of study of Anthropology. What does exist is Theatre Anthropology: a term coined by Eugenio Barba, which does not define a technique or style in particular but is rather a study on the common principles that can be found in the different performative art techniques worldwide.

“Theatre Anthropology is the study of the pre-expressive scenic behaviour upon which different genres, styles, roles and personal or collective traditions are all based” (1)

Barba himself clearly sets it apart from the definition of Cultural Anthropology, as he states:

“Let us therefore avoid equivocation. Theatre Anthropology is not concerned with applying the paradigms of cultural anthropology to theatre and dance. It is not the study of the performative phenomena in those cultures which are traditionally studied by anthropologists. Nor should Theatre Anthropology be confused with the anthropology of performance.
Every researcher knows that partial homonyms should not be confused with homologies. In addition to cultural anthropology there are many other anthropologies. Here the term “anthropology” is not being used in the sense of cultural anthropology, but refers to a new field of investigation, the study of the pre- expressive behaviour of the human being in an organized performance situation.” (2)

In any possible approach to a critical analysis of these misinterpretations to Eugenio Barba´s studies, there is a key distinction to be made between the theatre director and the theorist, despite the fact that both sides in him interact fluently and constantly. Actually, the development of Barba´s poetics as a theatre artist, has expressed itself throughout more than 40 years in his theatre performances and street performing actions which are inseparable from his activities and knowledge in the field of theatre theory. Nevertheless, this master’s distinctive mark is perhaps given by the fact that both these sides complement and transcend each other constantly and in a balanced way. It is hard to think of another director or theatre maker that has theorised beyond the limits of his own artistic or poetic development to the depth that Eugenio Barba has reached.

Therefore, to fail to make this fundamental distinction may lead to errors in the assimilation and interpretation of his theoretical and practical contributions to the general field of representation.

The researched objects united, compiled and transmitted in his works as a theorist and defined as Theatre Anthropology, become very valuable information and a powerful tool that describes some common principles in the art of a performer worldwide and no matter whether the use of these principles on the part of those who produce them, may be conscious or not.

“In an organised performance, the performer's physical and vocal presence is modelled according to principles which are different from those of daily life. This extra-daily use of the body-mind is called ‘technique”.
The performer´s various techniques can be conscious and codified or unconscious but implicit in the use and repetition of a theatre practice. Transcultural analysis shows that it is possible to single out recurring principles from among these techniques. These principles, when applied to certain physiological factors -weight, balance, the use of the spinal column and the eyes- produce physical, pre-expressive tensions. These new tensions generate an extra- daily energy quality which renders the body theatrically “decided”, “alive”, “believable”, thereby enabling the performer´s presence, or scenic bios, to attract the spectator´s attention before any message is transmitted. This is a “logical” and not a “chronological” before.” (3)

When an extra- daily quality is mentioned here, it is not aimed at ways of acting that do not take as a reference point the corpus of gestures and behaviours of everyday life, since even these acting poetics -what we call realism, naturalism, neo-naturalism, etc.- are also extra- daily techniques. This has been a recurrent confusion on the interpretation of this concept of extra-dailiness: it has continuously been associated only to acting devices that involve acculturation processes, such as Asian codified arts or Western Classical Ballet, to name a few examples; the misconception being that those devices or techniques that involve processes of inculturation (4) -the clearest example would be Stanislavski´s “method” but this would also be represented in some action devices which are on fashion in our circles nowadays- these devices also determine an extra-daily use of the performer´s body-mind as well.

“Performance study nearly always tends to prioritize theories and utopian ideas, neglecting an empirical approach. Theatre Anthropology directs its attention to empirical territory in order to trace a path among various specialized disciplines, techniques and aesthetics that deal with performing. It does not attempt to blend, accumulate or catalogue the performer´s techniques. It seeks the elementary: the techniques of techniques.” (5)

If we review the definition of Technique: from Greek, τέχνη (téchne): art, science. A technique is a procedure or a set of these (rules, norms, protocols), whose purpose consists in obtaining a certain result, we can clearly see that Theatre Anthropology is not a technique, nor a set of rules or norms or protocols to be followed, but a study that accounts for some common principles which are basis or support for different techniques or collective or individual acting devices which can be up- to- date or former. Knowing and recognising them does not induce us into a specific theatrical form but to the observation of the different forms and the possibility of using them in our singular work.

“The performer´s work fuses, into a single profile, three different aspects corresponding to three distinct levels of organization. The first aspect is individual, the second is common to all those who belong to the same performance genre. The third concerns all performers from every era and culture. These three aspects are:
1. The performer´s personality, her/his sensitivity, artistic intelligence, social persona: those characteristics which render the individual performer unique and uncopiable.
2. The particularities of the theatrical traditions and the historical-cultural context through which the performer´s unique personality manifests itself.
3. The use of the body-mind according to extra-daily technique based on transcultural, recurring principles. These recurring prin ciples are defined by Theatre Anthropology as the field of pre-expressivity.
The first two aspects determine the transition from pre-expressivity to performing. The third is the idem, which does not vary, it underlies the various personal, stylistic and cultural differences. It is the level of the scenic bios, the “biological” level of performance, upon which the various techniques and the particular uses of the performer´s scenic presence and dynamisms are founded.” (6)

I consider a mistake to talk of a ”theatre anthropology technique” since, as we have seen, it is a set of investigations and observations that accounts for the different techniques and acting forms and how to find common principles in them. As inadequate as that –I believe- is to talk of a “Barba technique” or an “Odin Teatret Technique”. It is possible, however, to talk of a tradition or a style which is defined by his poetic and aesthetic constructions, by the specific use of the different technical elements and by a huge amount of performative events and actions in the theatre sphere apart from performances.
Regarding the level of technical work of the actors from Odin, it is interesting to note that they have developed their common education and training only during the first 8 years of life of the Group (Odin Teatret is today 46 years old). After that period, each performer has developed their own quests or has been trained by some other more experienced actor in the group to later develop his own path in that aspect within the collective. In each actor and actress´ training and development we can certainly find some common principles, methodologies and ethical norms related to the work, but the structuring forms and ways of this training and sometimes even the language used to name the elements that compose it may be different. The techniques of the actors from Odin are diverse and non-unified except for –I insist- the underlying principles that go through them.

The exercises, practices and teachings of the performers of Odin Teatret, or of some direct disciple, have often been interpreted, appointed, named and used as if they belonged to a supposed “anthropological technique”; or as if, by its mere execution, they determined their belonging to one or to an “anthropological way of theatre- making” and this only because of its being developed by a performer from the collective that Eugenio Barba directs. The fact that is often omitted is that many of these works usually have much in common with techniques or aspects which are shared with other scenic traditions both collective and individual.

In any case, we can speak of some exercises belonging totally or partially to the personal tradition of some Odin Teatret actor, that has been defined by his or her personal quests and developments and this will surely function as a tool to work on scenic principles and rules that are potentially possible to be analysed from the view of Theatre Anthropology but no less than as Stanislavski´s exercises can be analised, or Meyerhold´s, Brook´s, or Bartís´ in our field, just to name a few examples.
In this way, some exercises from the personal tradition of some performer or performers from Odin Teatret, have landed in our shores to be fetishized or stigmatised as the basis of “anthropological theatre” or as a “Barba technique”; to be elevated to the level of complete techniques when they are no more than tools used to develop particular qualities and scenic principles in the work of a performer.

Another frequent error that has occurred and still occurs today relates to the belief that a practice on a certain exercise in itself defines a spectacle’s poetics. It has often been argued that only by the fact of executing certain exercise, a singular “form of theatre practice” is being developed when actually what is being developed is an abstraction model on the scenic elements or principles that are only the basis of acting poetics.
"The pre- expressive base constitutes the elementary level of organisation of the theatre. The various levels of organisation in the performance are, for the spectator, inseparable and indistinguishable. They can only be separated by means of abstraction, in a situation of analytical research during the technical work of composition done by the performer. The ability to focus on the pre-expressive level makes possible an expansion of knowledge with consequences both in the practical as well as in the historical and critical fields of work.

In general, the performer´s professional experience begins with the assimilation of technical knowledge, which is then personalised. Knowledge of the principles which govern the scenic bios make something else possible: learning to learn. This is of tremendous importance for those who choose or who are obliged to go beyond the limits of specialised technique. In fact learning to learn is essential for everyone. It is the conditon that enables us to dominate technical knowledge and not be dominated by it." (7)

Clearly, the formal characteristics that define an exercise are present or will be present in the expressive quality of the acting device but as a life- giving parallel essence.

“Exercises are small labyrinths the performer´s body-mind can wander to incorporate a paradoxical way of thinking, to differentiate from their own everyday way of acting and shift to the scenic field of extra- daily action. Exercises resemble amulets the performer carries, not to exhibit them but to extract a certain quality of energy from which a second nervous system develops. An exercise is made of memory, body- memory. An exercise becomes memory which is active throughout the whole body.” (8)

It is necessary to distinguish between the exercises that operate or work on the performer’s general training and development -those which are more related to the pre- expressive basis of performing- from those procedures that function as quests that will result in the expressive level and will then define poetics and aesthetics in particular; but without forgetting that the previously mentioned exercises are structuring parts of the latter.

An actor does not act with the structuring form of an exercise but with its principles, which will provide resources to the specific creation of states, characters, scenic behaviours and actions, etc. Therefore, by mere repetition of a certain exercise a practitioner is not provided with a theatre form or technique. An exercise at pre- expressive level is meaningless unless it is understood that what is really important in it are the principles on which it works. The inference from this is that an exercise is valid as a learning- training object provided it permits an evolution within its basic premises and this is another area that presents problems because of the incomplete assimilation of practices received from actors from Odin or Barba himself. This means that the exercise submits the performer to a constant process of assimilation of abilities to be surpassed. An exercise is rich when its development incorporates new limits to be expanded, in order to generate a dynamic of assimilation- surpassing that eventually operates on the development of thought-system and presence in an actor.

The mechanical repetition of a learned premise will never determine real assimilation of technical elements if what is behind the structural form of the exercise is not understood and this, naturally, requires time.
In that respect, there is a high risk produced by workshops and short seminars where only a few elements or premises of the work are apprehended and later repeated mechanically and non- conscientiously with the pretension that some knowledge is being incorporated. This has produced and often produces –contrary to what is hoped for- an important de- instruction.

At a theoretical level, there has been lots of writing in our theatre circles that has attempted to classify under the name of Theatre Anthropology all the activity developed by Eugenio Barba and his group -as well as their influence on local theatre- makers- without any distinction on which the centering point of such a corpus would be. As if the disquisitions that appear in Theatre Anthropology defined a particular approach to theatre- making when, as can be seen from definition, nothing can be further from this assertion.

In Eugenio Barba´s impact and influence in our field, a necessary distinction must be made between technical elements (basically, those directed to the work of the performer) and those related to his work poetics and ethics. Theatre Anthopology is related to the former and not to the latter. Therefore, not all actions by Eugenio Barba and his Group can be called Theatre Anthropology.

Theatre Anthopology is not a synonym of group theatre, nor of stage exoticism; it is not synonym of Jerzy Grotowski or Antonin Artaud, nor of Bali traditional theatre, nor Japanese Kabuki, nor of the movement patterns in the dances of the Andean cultures, etc, etc, etc. In any case, Theatre Anthopology constitutes a clear and powerful tool in order to be able to study theoretically and use pragmatically, or simply get to know, for one´s own personal self development, these personal or collective techniques and traditions.

These misinterpretations and their mistaken transfers are often responsible of prejudice and superficial approaches toward the field of knowledge of these materials on the part of performers, directors and theatre makes in our spheres. There is an astounding incapacity from many theatre- makers, theorists and critics to discern between performance production and theoretical production -Barba´s in this case- in order to be able to analyze rigorously and seriously through that distinction; and in a way that the observations on the poetical and ethical aspects of his work are not reproduced blindly when it comes to the analysis of technical notions, or in the development of these in other fields of work.

Apart from this, simple prejudice often operates on misinformation. Thought and information homogenization in our circles, the result of a blind adhering to trendy currents, often produces a degree of close-mindedness when it comes to reflection and analysis of some assumptions from different trends.
It is also clear that this prejudice has been bred over the years, reasonably enough, by instruction, training and performance proposals that, in the name of the influence or superficial fascination for a “master”, have produced objects and activities of scarce quality or seriously based analysis.

It is only logical and understandable that in the learning or consolidation process of a professional identity there be imitation or a clearly evidenced influence from a master or system but the problem is the mechanical or systematic repetition of knowledge over a long period of time without the comprehension of the effect of that process in the singularity of one’s personal development and without the analysis on how this process inserts in one’s context or field of work.

This evident problem of mechanical and thoughtless transmission and assimilation of technical and theoretical knowledge is usually observed in many local experiences but in the case of Barba´s work influence in our theatre circles, as well as in almost all Latin American countries where he took his work, this problematic is highly notorious.

On the other hand, these superficial assimilations of theory and practice in relation to performative art have occurred worldwide in History and with many “corpuses” of knowledge. It would be enough to think of Stanislavsky’s work, or Meyerhold´s or Brecht´s -just to name a few emblematic examples- to show how these disquisitions are part of the dynamic nature of knowledge and how their movement, both as knowledge and as a body of learnings, involve –so it seems- these contradictions as a condition of their own. Moreover, this same contradictory process denotes their value and importance. Nevertheless, the understanding of the dynamics of knowledge does not prevent our reflection on the ways it operates and therefore –so I believe- our fostering it.

Diego Starosta, Buenos Aires, October, 2010.
Translated by Natalia Barry, January, 2011.

(1) Original quote in Spanish from: Barba, Eugenio, La canoa de papel, Tratado de Antropología teatral, Ed. Catálogos, Buenos Aires, 1999. Pág. 25.
English version by Richard Fowler: Barba, Eugenio, The paper canoe: a guide to theatre anthropology. In: google books

(2)Original quote in Spanish from: Ibidem, Pág. 26.
English version adapted as in the original, taken from: Ibidem, in:
google books

(3)Original quote in Spanish from: Ibidem, Pág. 25.
English version taken from: Ibidem, in: google books

(4) In order to be more effective in their context, in order to make their historical biographical identity emerge, the performers use forms, manners, behaviour, procedures, guile, appearances, … what we call technique. This is characteristic of every performer and exists in all traditions. Making an analysis which goes beyond culture (western, eastern, northern, southern), beyond genres (classical ballet, modern dance, opera, operetta, musical, text theatre, body theatre, classical theatre, contemporary theatre, etc) going beyond all this, we arrive back at the first day, when the student begins to learn how to become effective relative to the spectator. And we find two points of departure, two paths. On the first part, the performers use their “spontaneity”, elaborating the behaviour which comes to them naturally, which they have absorbed since their birth in the culture and social milieu in which they have grown up. Anthropologists define as inculturation this process of passive sensory- motor absorption of the daily behaviour of a given culture. A child´s organic adaptation to the conduct and life norms of his culture, the conditioning to a “naturalness” permits a gradual and organic transformation which is also growth.
Stanislavski made the most important methodological contribution to this path of elaborated spontaneity of “inculturation technique”. It consists of a mental process which enlivens and dilates the performer´s inculturated naturalness. By means of the “magic if”, by means of a mental codification, the performers alter their daily behaviour, change their habitual way of being, and materialise the character they are to portray. This is also the objective of Brecht´s alienation technique or social gesture. It always refers to a performer who, during the work process, models his or her natural and daily behaviour intro extra- daily scenic behaviour with a built- in social fabric or subtexts.
Acting technique which uses variations of inculturation is transcultural. The peasant theatre in Oxolotlán, performed by indigenous people on an isolated mountain in Mexico, uses a technique which is based on inculturaltion. It is the same technique found in the Living Theatre of Khardaha on the outskirts of Calcutta, where the performers are farmers, workers and students. There are ways of being a performer in Europe and in America, in Asia and in Australia, which are manifest through inculturation techniques.
At the same time, in all cultures, it is possible to observe another path for the performer, the utilisation of specific body techniques which are separate from those used in daily life. Modern and classical ballet dancers, mimes, and performers from traditional Oriental theatres have denied their “naturalness” and have adopted another means of scenic behaviour. They have undergone a process of “acculturation” imposed from the outsider, with ways of standing, walking, stopping, looking, and sitting which are different from the daily.
The technique of acculturation artificialises (or stylises, as is often said) the performer´s behaviour. But it also results in another quality of energy. We have all experienced this other quality of energy when watching a classical Indian or Japanese actor, a modern dancer or a mime. Such performers are fascinating to the degree that they have been successful in modifying their “naturalness”, transforming it into “lightness” as in classical ballet, or into vigour as in modern dance. Acculturation technique is the distortion of usual (natural) appearance in order to recreate it sensorially in a fresh and astonishing way.
The “acculturated” performer manifests a quality and an energetic radiation which is presence ready to be transformed into dance or theatre according to convention or tradition. But the path of inculturation also leads to rich variations and shades of daily behaviour, to an essential quality of the vocal action of language, to a flux of tensions, to sudden changes of rhythms and intensities which give life to a “theatre which dances”. Both the inculturation path and the acculturation path activate the pre- expressive level: presence ready to re-present.
It is therefore useless to overemphasize the differences between classical Oriental theatres, with their accultured performers, and Occidental theatre, with its inculturated performers, given that they are analogous on the pre- expressive level
Original quote in Spanish from: Barba, Eugenio y Savarese, Nicola, El arte secreto del actor, Ed. Escenología, México, 1990. Pág. 264-266
English version from: Barba, Eugenio and Savarese, Nicola,The secret art of the performer, In: google books

(5) Original quote in Spanish from: Barba, Eugenio, La canoa de papel, Tratado de Antropología teatral, Ed. Catálogos, Buenos Aires, 1999. Pág. 26
English version taken from: Ibidem, in: http://books.google.com.ar/books?id=llBfc_uYOxYC&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=the+t... ">google books

(6) Original quote in Spanish from: Ibidem, Pág. 26-27
English version taken from: Ibidem, in: google books

(7) Original quote in Spanish from: Ibidem, Pág. 25-26
English version taken from: Ibidem, In: google books

(8) Barba, Eugenio. An Amulet made of memory. The Significance of Exercises in the Actor’s Dramaturgy. Reflections from the work during Ista’s 9th session in Ummea, Sweden, May 1995. (Original quote in Spanish).