Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 10 Number 2, August 2009

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Etienne Decroux: A Corporeal Consciousness

by

Susie Mower

University of Lincoln

corporal adj of the body [Latin corpus body]

corporeal (kore-pore-ee-al) adj of the physical world rather than the spiritual [Latin corpus body][1]

As humans, we are all moulded by the events that unravel throughout life, the experiences we are subjected to, and our varying perceptions of these. Each person’s life touches upon the lives of many others, their actions and decisions leaving traces that become committed to history, and their every movement carving its way through the magnetic force-field created by the energy that passes through the universe and each and every being that inhabits it. A multitude of conflicting theories surround the explanation as to whether a singular, universal life-force exists, and what this could be attributed to – a divine entity for instance, or yogic principles. Moreover, a vagueness and a subtlety preside where the question of the sacred, the holy, the sum of the human experience dares to raise its head without the theoretical underpinning of the sciences, and with the connotations of something more spiritual: “Unlike sociology and psychoanalysis which understand the sacred in materialist and functional terms, theological discourse grants the sacred holy or transcendental significance . . . the transcendental is a value or ‘truth’ that has no origin in human history . . . although the transcendental can be ‘experienced’ by a human agent, we can never know its origins.”[2] As Professor Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe, pioneer in the study of theatre practice in relation to consciousness studies, explains: “The main focus of Indian philosophy has been human consciousness and practical techniques for its development.”[3] In this instance, the transcendental can be experienced, attained, and sometimes sustained, by the mere mortal if, through adhering to the necessary practices, and accepting the enrichment of the Vedic texts, the human can reach a pure consciousness, above that of every day life and its falsities. In performance terms, as it is with performance that we are, here, concerned, the Natyashastra (Natya meaning drama, and Shastra meaning holy text), offers instructions for the greater spiritual well-being and guidance of those coming into contact with theatre: “Theatre in this context thus has the direct and explicit function to restore the golden age, for humankind, implying restoration of the state of perfection, liberation (moksha), enlightenment, higher states of consciousness for all people on earth.”[4]

     It could be said that, as theatre may change the consciousness of those partaking in its creation or its consumption, Etienne Decroux (1898 - 1991) changed the consciousness of modern theatre itself. Speaking of the effect that the heightened consciousness of Decroux’s philosophy has had on a number of those persons pursuing a study of his work, actor, scholar and one time pupil of the, “…father of modern corporeal mime…”[5], Professor Thomas Leabhart states: “These writers describe Decroux and his work with a special, highly charged, vocabulary – a language of spirituality and religion, of ritual and of shamanism used in the service of art.”[6] The metamorphosis, or ritualistic initiation, that pupils of Decroux had, unquestionably, to endure in order to pursue, with any integrity, the teachings of a man whose, “…passion for his art was uncompromising…” comprised the fundamental re-sculpting of the human body; such was his dogged determination to perfect his form and that of his pupils, “…the rigour of his devotion was finally oppressive for everyone except Decroux himself.”[7] The following extract sheds light on the influences that shaped and sculpted Decroux’s own consciousness, and must, in turn, have advised the formulation of his performance practice:

Over a period of many years, my father used to take me every Monday to a variety music-hall, known as the Café-Concert.

My father built houses with his hands. He provoked lengthy discussions about justice and injustice. No one else in our neighbourhood had the ideas that he had.

He would give me my bath, completely at ease, prepare the meals, cure my sore throats, and cut my hair carefully.

Sometimes he would read poetry to me in a reserved manner.

Until my twenty-fifth year I mainly worked in the building trade, but I tried my hand at everything.

I can remember having been a painter, a plumber, a mason, a tile-layer, a butcher, a construction worker, a docker, a coach-repairer, a dish-washer and a hospital attendant. I even put rubber tubing on refrigerator doors to make them air-tight. I gathered the hay and reaped the harvest.

After all, there were so many things to see.

There are some poor wretches who have not seen any of that.

I wonder how they go about producing a play.

These things, seen and experienced first hand, gradually moved into the back of my mind, down the back of my arms, and finally down to my fingertips where they modified the fingerprints.[8]

The metaphorical “modification” of Decroux’s fingerprints, described above, in his own, inimitable and inspired manner, could be seen, then, as pre-emptive of the modification of the physical being, that would drive forward his life’s artistic endeavours: “Through relentless analysis and reflection on the human body and on the body of the mime artist, he succeeded in building a theatre whose sole means of expression was the body, and in training the actors, the mimes, who were able to bring this theatre into being, using only silent gesture.”[9] For the artist to be constructed as a suitable performer in Decroux’s theatre, however, he would first face deconstruction, or “modification” of those physical techniques previously known to him – almost akin to a full deconstruction of the body and mind – as Eugenio Barba, Director of the International School of Theatre Anthropology, summarises: “Everything takes place as if the performer’s body taken apart and then recomposed according to successive and antagonistic movements.”[10]

     There is something of the Holy in the work of the corporeal mime artist, “…The Theatre of The-Invisible-Made-Visible…”[11], in a modern age that has, according to Brook, “…lost all sense of ritual and ceremony.”[12] As Richard Schechner writes: “Artists of many cultures have long made art used in rituals – church music, altar pieces and devotional paintings, temple icons, masks, religious dances and dramas, and so on.”[13] In using the experiences of ordinary life, for instance the knowledge gleaned from working in many manually productive trades, as an informative means of identifying blueprints for performance, whilst removing the realistic element in the re-production of the activities carried out in the tasks of The Carpenter, to cite one example, Decroux succeeded in raising the seemingly daily, ritualistic activities of a workman into the poetic, sacred realm. Decroux suggests in his Words on Mime, that: “It would not take much for theatre not to be an art, since it suggests the thing by the thing itself: fatness by a fat man, woman by a woman, the body by a body, the word by the word, elevation by elevation, displacement by displacement, coloured volume by coloured volume.”[14] The same cannot be said, however, of his seminal piece, The Carpenter, which sees the entirely neutral character representative of a carpenter, pursuing the business of his day. It is apparent, from the actions of the carpenter under scrutiny in the self-entitled piece, that his movements are made for their aesthetic qualities rather than to illustrate a naturalistic narrative; in terms of real life, his behaviour would otherwise seem eccentric: “The sequence is hardly ‘realistic’, as one would end up with a plank which had a circle traced on it, a screw planted in the middle of it, and bits of wood gouged out of it (an abstract sculpture?)”[15] Decroux’s aim in the production of his art, it seems, extended beyond the need to represent the commonplace actions of man and reach towards universally recognisable, yet abstract, concepts instead:

We’ve encountered a horse, but not the horse. We’ve never seen the Frenchman, we’ve seen a Frenchman. And it’s like that with everything. We’ve never seen the carpenter either.[16]

     As a reaction to the overriding presence of the literary cannon that reigned supreme, contemporary to the theatre of his time, Decroux put forth the following question:  “Must we assume that, unable to imagine all the potentialities of voice and body, because until now no study or practice has prepared him, the author believes himself obliged to fill with words a space which, in his eyes, would otherwise remain forever empty?”[17] By the very inclination of his express vision, Decroux here seems to suggest that the playwright/author fills, by force of learned tradition, the void that is the blank page with a language built of words alone, adding: “Even if the author were a specialist in autonomous diction and Mime, and were therefore aware of what one can expect from these two scenic arts, the mere fact of being seated at a table, equipped with a pen, ink and blank sheets, would prompt him, in spite of everything, to express the idea entirely with words.”[18] This word-reliant language, being, as it is, a sign system in itself, far removed from the system born of Decroux’s physical experimentation, is used to codify the ethereal matter that travels along its mercurial path, within and without the consciousness of creator and audience. If language is a sign-system, however, so too is the manipulation of the human body by the performer: “Despite levels of difficulty reading the body is a task which the theatre semiotician must face up to, given its centrality to the theatrical sign-system and the production of meaning.”[19] The paper, pen and ink, in this case, and, indeed in this case, however, inform the consciousness of the writer that he/she is obliged to eradicate emptiness and proliferate meaning, using words as the safest, most indelible stamp with which to de-neutralise the blank-canvas.

     Decroux’s codification, unlike that of the playwright/author, relies on articulation of the human body into its particular sections and, further, into “scales”, lateral and contradictory; the application of which system is used to express the inner-narrative or music of the creator, in place of the written word. As Leabhart writes: “These scales – inclination of head, hammer (head plus neck), bust (head plus neck plus chest), torso (head plus neck plus chest plus waist), trunk (head plus neck plus chest plus waist plus pelvis), with a conform or contrary axle, and so on and so forth – are just the beginning of a technique that includes counterweights (physical and moral), figures of style, figures of sport, walks, arm and hand techniques, mobile statuary, and so on.”[20] As the playwright de-neutralises the blank-canvas that is the page, the corporeal mime artist de-neutralises the human body when he/she carves the flesh-encapsulated form into a variety of statuesque pictures, both mobile and stationary, the speed variable, with moments of “dynamic immobility”, displaying the “dynamo-rhythm” of each work: “Dynamo-rhythm, the term Decroux coined to discuss speed and weight, reveals itself through pause, weight, resistance, hesitation, and surprise – basic elements of drama.”[21] Similarly, the sculptor de-neutralises the block of stone, the moment he imparts upon it the shape that his inner-narrative, or his subconscious, perhaps, dictates.

     The conventional playwright shares an almost spiritual affinity with the creator of physical theatre and the sculptor; in reflection on the elusive topic of “inspiration”, for instance, the playwright David Mamet describes, by analogy, the creative process of writing a play in the following terms: “You start to carve wood, and very quickly the thing takes on a life of its own.”[22] In comparing this statement, made by Mamet, to the reflective writings of Decroux, one unearths a poignant affinity between the two, almost opposing, schools of thought favoured by each man (Mamet being known, primarily as a literary man, whilst Decroux assumes the position of physical theatre practitioner). Decroux speaks of “Bodily Presence” in an article for La Revue Esthetique, 1960, beginning: “To have only his body as his material is for the artist a striking condition.”[23] Decroux elaborates by adding: “I like the stone carver who must work directly with matter: that’s someone who knows what a challenge it is to complete the word without overloading the writings; he feels the idea ready to make its way through a space whose distance is as yet unmeasured.”[24] Both Mamet and Decroux, then, acknowledge a certain amount of craftsmanship taking place, in both authorship of a written work, and the carving of wood or stone (it seems reasonable to infer that Decroux alludes to his own physical work, also, in the musings regarding the sculptor), whilst also teetering on the brink of implying a higher, almost divine, event taking place in creation, or inspiration, which leads the creator and informs him of his pathway. Decroux, who, as will be demonstrated in following accounts during the course of this study, allowed the beginnings of his performances and those of pupils to evolve naturally, particularly during improvisation, as the carver or sculptor, of wood or of stone, respectively, would allow the evolution of his own craftwork. In Words on Mime, we can observe how Decroux regards, with admiration, the everlasting nature of the sculptor’s work, and how, in it’s artificially constant art, born of the manipulation of its inorganic matter by some organic force, it becomes a pure reality to us, the spectator:

I should like to have been a sculptor.

The spirit becomes clear only when filtered through stone.

Statuary is an art carved out of reality and one whose creations are permanent.

The model of the sculptor is the transformer that touches and is touched and whose name is man. In transforming stone, the sculptor touches it, and once his work is finished, we can touch it.

Decroux continues by likening his thoughts on sculpture to his love of poetry and ultimate vision for the art of the actor:

It is my desire that the actor accept the artifice and sculpt the air, making us feel where the line of poetry begins and where it ends.

I was born to love mime.

The body is a glove whose finger is thought.[25]

     Such was Decroux’s vision of his system, his very thoughts took corporeal shape via his plasticity of movement, rather than organising themselves under the regimentation of sentences and paragraphs. As Jean Dorcy writes: “Professionals, the young, budding mimes who think with the assistance of words and states of being, seek to fathom the secret of the master who thinks immediately in terms of forms and images.”[26] According to an extensive survey carried out by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Mental imagery (varieties of which are sometimes colloquially refered to as “visualizing,” “seeing in the mind's eye,” “hearing in the head,” “imagining the feel of,” etc.) is quasi-perceptual experience; it resembles perceptual experience, but occurs in the absence of the appropriate external stimuli. It is also generally understood to bear intentionality (i.e., mental images are always images of something or other), and thereby to function as a form of mental representation. Traditionally, visual mental imagery, the most discussed variety, was thought to be caused by the presence of picture-like representations (mental images) in the mind, soul, or brain, but this is no longer universally accepted.[27]

This introductory description of mental imagery already brings with it the suggestion of a relationship between such “visualisations”, possibly experienced by Decroux, and the “internal music” of the artist, mentioned by Leabhart in relation to Decroux’s teachings: “Along the way, he wanted me to begin to hear what he described as an ‘internal music,’ a sort of nonrhythmic series of sounds – more vibrations, really – that resembled articulated speech.”[28] This internal music would seem, by way of its attribution to the inner workings of the being, by its very name, to be linked in some way to the subconscious mind. Decroux, encouraging, as he did, this mysterious entity to lead the work of the performer, writes: “The actor, called interpreter in the sense of intermediary or ‘middleman,’ is an author of dramatic music: which he composes, though without writing down a note, to accompany the words of the man who is called the author.”[29] One could say that by “hearing in the head”, the “dramatic music” of a performance piece, the artist unknowingly employs a variant of mental imagery and sets about the outward construction of an inward experience – akin to that which we more commonly refer to as inspiration. Amusingly, contrary to the immediate picture we may conjure up when we think of the mime artist, Leabhart recollects: “Decroux, almost never silent, spoke and sang constantly; he whistled, hummed, breathed loudly and buzzed as he demonstrated movements.”[30] Having been taught some, limited (a full study is a life’s work), corporeal mime technique by Leabhart, incidentally, it is striking to observe that he has inherited from his teacher the very same, infectious musical running commentary to accompany his demonstrations - it’s effect is astonishing – as it adds an enchanting and explanatory quality to each “phrase” of physical music. Whilst letting a certain amount of his inner music project into the outer atmosphere, however, it should be noted that it is: “Internalized singing (muscular respiration), [which] lies at the heart of Decroux’s work.”[31]

     As Jean Dorcy writes, having been a colleague of Decroux in the early days of the birth of mime, through,  “…masked experiments…”[32], at The Ecole du Vieux-Colombier, “…Etienne Decroux had to recognise that the Mime, a world of fiction where nothing exists, where everything must appear, was incompatible with the realism he cherished [prior to the commencement of the formulisation of his own corporeal system]...the problems which beset all creators forced themselves upon him: to ‘think’ the image, to select, to enlarge, to transpose.”[33] Added to this, explains Dorcy: “What we call the concentration of actions [in mime] is obviously neither a mutilation or a stylisation…but the condensation of idea, space and time.”[34] The mime artist, then, is obliged to become a scenographer of sorts, as: “With appropriate images, and through the method of simulation, the mime condenses space as he condenses time…He could portray the universe in two square feet.”[35] It is here, in the designing of his mise-en scene, as it were, that Decroux’s subjection to mental images or visions may, we can only speculate, have been an ally in the creation of his work. Meyer-Dinkgräfe highlights that: “Human abilities related to space are conceptualised and studied in the discipline of cognitive (neuro-) psychology as spatial awareness, or spatial cognition.”[36] Interestingly, Meyer-Dinkgräfe continues to reveal that: “Spatial cognition is related to mental imagery…” further suggesting that it, “…would be interesting to collect qualitative data about the creative processes of scenographers, and to compare this with existing research into mental imagery.”[37] The aforementioned Stanford research would imply its agreement with the above, acknowledging that mental imagery, “… is also commonly believed to be centrally involved in visuo-spatial reasoning and inventive or creative thought.”[38] As an example of a study of this, in Picturing Mind, John Danvers examines, amongst other things, “…the ways in which art and poetry provide us with visual and textual manifestations of a mind at work – sensing, thinking, imagining, enquiring – spinning a web of representations, utterances, songs and showings that enable us to sense the shape and quality of consciousness at the threshold between an emobied self and the energy field of which it is an integral part.”[39]

     Decroux then, we could infer, may have taken some of his particular impetuous from experiences of mental imagery, when devising his theatre – certainly more so than his instead being bound by the doctrine of structuralist semiotics prescribed by, for instance, the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure: “Saussure is interested in language not only as a closed semiotic system but also as an abstract system rather than a system used by people in a changing world.”[40] Aside from placing an urgent emphasis on the physical and visual aspects of performance, over and above the literary, Decroux’s system also displays a more organic and evolutionary state, particularly in terms of creation and improvisation, where the actor relies on the subconscious to inform the movement of the body in an almost primeval, instinctive, anthropological manner. In the teaching of his dedicated pupils, Decroux, “…allowed the actor’s random or unconscious movements to grow, and subsequently edited or built upon this growth, or expunged it and began afresh.”[41] Leabhart describes the organicity that drove his master: “In my work with him, Decroux told me to follow ‘naturally asymmetrical tendencies,’ to lean in whatever direction my body wanted to go on that particular day, and to continue until I met an exterior limitation (the wall, the floor) or an internal one (e. g. the knee will only bend so far; the arm has raised to its maximum).”[42] If, in this case, improvisation and creation were also influenced by what the artist’s body “wanted” to do on any given day, this influencing factor going hand-in-hand with the internal music already discussed, it would seem that Decroux’s system rails against Diderot’s Paradox of Acting, formulated in 1773. As Meyer-Dinkgräfe explains, Diderot’s theories on acting hold, as their linchpin, the belief that, “…the [emotionally involved] actor loses his self-control and the acting varies from performance to performance because it depends on the actor’s daily ups and downs.”[43] However, in terms of Decroux’s methodology, it is the physiology, rather than the psychology, of the actor, leading the daily work. Moreover, Decroux did not allow, necessarily, the growing “random or unconscious movements” of the actor to entirely shape and control the improvisations produced but, rather, as mentioned previously, he would modify and develop the artists’ movements, or completely erase the very same and reconstruct accordingly. Decroux, then, consciously remoulded those incidents of art created by the subconscious minds of his disciples.

     It is worth noting, in relation to the above, that Decroux thought similarly to Diderot in a certain sense: “Diderot believed most feelings to be directly related to what he regarded as the physical centre – the diaphragm.”[44] As stated, however, the juxtaposition of opinions on the “physical centre”, between Decroux and Diderot, can only be argued as similar to a certain point; Decroux believed passionately in an energy centre, from which performative “presence” can radiate, but this is placed differently to that of Diderot, and extends a differing ideology. As a basis for corporeal movement, the area around the sacrum must be activated and “felt” to be the hub of a circular energy that gives strength to the body. Decroux rejected the upward and outward performances given by mainstream performers and, rather, felt that the actor should create a circle around his/herself, as the circle is stronger than the straight line. This circular force field, as it were, is created by the “hooking up” and contracting of the abdomen and lifting of the sacrum, the head being a little forward rather than thrown back in an oratory style, and a general, yet gentle, forward curvature of one’s vertical. Dorcy writes of Decroux’s discovery of the, “…virtue of the curved line…”, somewhat admonishingly: “Perhaps the obstinate Decroux should have discovered sooner that the straight line has little virtue, that the curve alone blends harmoniously with time.”[45] Parisian-based Hippocampe – a corporeal mime research association, base their training on what they term The Seahorse Project; the following extract from their website goes some way to explaining why their corporeal programme is so-called, and sheds light on Decroux’s envisaged model:

When the seahorse is not moving, he is a thinker, his head bent down. This is what we do when we work, and above all when we analyze. The act of analyzing makes us look down, not up. We look up to see the totality, a panorama; but if we want to understand something, know it, dissect it, we want to take it in our hands, up there, and put it on the table in order to change it, to know it better, to analyze it, or as they said in the eighteenth century, to divide it. The seahorse seems to be looking at something, and we feel that the back of his neck continues to his forehead”[46]

As Meyer-Dinkgräfe writes of Diderot’s proposition: “Negative emotions lead to a contraction of the diaphragm, positive, such as happiness, to an expansion.”[47] It would seem that, from Decroux’s particular stance, a contraction of the diaphragm might well be a positive basis from which to create art, whereas an expansion would be entirely inappropriate, opening the actor outward in the grandiose manner. Meyer-Dinkgräfe continues: “Once the diaphragm starts reacting, i.e. once feelings dominate, the mental faculties such as reason and judgement are rendered ineffective [according to Diderot’s teachings].”[48] Decroux, on the other hand, saw his centre as the epicentre from which movements are controlled. Control should come from the centre in Decroux’s mime, rather than the centre suffering misalignment due to imbalances in the emotion.

     In anthropological terms, with the maintenance of a stylistic code of conduct, (grounded in the isolation and articulation of separate parts of the artist’s body and varying the intensities and the rhythms of movement, employing muscular contraction and relaxation), which would, through habit of movement, inform even any improvisational work, the corporeal mime artist creates what Barba would term the scenic bios, that may penetrate the consciousness of the spectator, even before a mutually recognised, yet unspoken, dialogue takes place between performer and audience. The corporeal groundwork established by Decroux, stands as a strong foundation upon which to lay, firmly, the building blocks of a physical art, which stands apart from certain other performance methods, due to the very nature of its sustainable and recognisable principles of practice: 

In an organised performance the performer’s physical and vocal presence is modelled according to principles which are different to those of daily life. This extra-daily use of the body-mind is called ‘technique’.[49]

Barba here explains, concisely and illustratively, almost the very essence of Decroux’s corporeal technique:

Decroux insists on this use of equivalence, which is a recurring principle. His mime is based on the rigorous substitution of extra-daily tensions equivalent to those necessary for the body’s daily techniques. Decroux explains how an action from daily life can be believably represented by acting in exactly the opposite way. The action of pushing something is shown not by projecting the chest forward and pressing down with the back foot – as one does in the daily action – but by arching the spine concavely, as if instead of pushing it was being pushed, and bending the arms towards the chest and pressing downwards with the front leg and foot. This consistent and radical inversion of the forces characteristic of the daily action produces the work involved in the daily action. It is a fundamental principle of the theatre: on stage, the action must be real, but it is not important that it be realistic.[50]

We could argue, then, that Decroux created an identifiable physical technique, which changes the consciousness of the artist. As Meyer-Dinkgräfe writes: “In the process of developing skills in extra-daily behaviour, actors will need to abandon modes of behaviour that have become unconscious and thus automatic.”[51] In terms of consciousness and acting, Decroux shares a certain viewpoint with Stanislavsky, who, “…sought to develop procedures allowing the actor to use the subconscious forces through conscious technique.”[52] In the words of Stanislavsky himself:

Our conscious mind arranges, and puts a certain amount of order into, the phenomena of the external world that surrounds us. There is no sharply drawn line between conscious and subconscious experience. Our consciousness often indicates the direction in which our subconscious continues to work. Therefore, the fundamental objective of our psycho-technique is to put us in a creative state in which our subconscious will function naturally.[53]

As Decroux, then, may have plotted each narrative from a series of mental images, possibly born of, or working in conjunction with, spontaneous, or subconscious, physical movement, it could be argued that, by following the legacy formulated from his conscious, physical technique, (practising certain exercises for instance) one can also, inadvertently, realise mental images and narratives from the subconscious, quite in spite of any deliberate effort to do so.

     As a part of this study, due to appropriation, a subjective approach shall be adopted, for a short time, whereby I will relate certain experiences of my own, and my interpretation of those experiences, in the first person; this will supply, I believe, a greater explanation of the relatively obscure subject matter. As Meyer-Dinkgräfe writes: “It is striking that in 1998, one of the first major projects run under the auspices of the Center for Consciousness Studies specifically addressed the issue of dealing with human subjectivity in a scientific context . . . [first person approaches] vindicate and develop further the early attempts by Fischer or John H. Clark at making sense of the experiences of ASC [Altered States of Consciousness] in a solid context.”[54] By adopting the extra-daily behaviours necessary for corporeal mime to take place, the state of the performer’s consciousness is altered, or, moreover, lifted, perhaps to a higher state of consciousness altogether, in order to leave behind the automatic behaviours of everyday life: “ASC include higher states of consciousness as proposed by Vedic Science”[55] As part of an investigation into the ephemeral and widely debated topic that is artistic inspiration, Meyer-Dinkgräfe writes that: “This state [the altered state of consciousness that the artist finds his/herself in when immersed in/subjected to inspiration] is often located between waking and sleeping.”[56] Whilst partaking in the intensive study of Decroux’s corporeal mime, on a personal level, I experienced a significant change in what can only be described as my subconscious thought patterns; specifically I refer to those mental images occurring in dreams. Psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) famously set out to, amongst other things, “…provide proof that there is a psychological technique which allows us to interpret dreams, and that when this procedure is applied, every dream turns out to be a meaningful psychical formation which can be given an identifiable place in what goes on within us in our waking life.”[57] To consider another angle, an angle from which we also approach this study, Stephen LaBerge writes: “In some ways, of course, this aspect of [Western] psychoanalysis has strong parallels with Buddhism and other Eastern doctrines.”[58] Dreams being attributed to this aforementioned state of limbo, “between waking and sleeping”, making them a bedfellow, one might surmise, to inspiration, lends scope to the exploration of subconscious mind-activity as a driving force of creativity.

     For my own part, I have experienced, for many years, a myriad of dreams, states of suspended animation almost, whereby such mental imagery has manifested itself in creative forms that I rarely envisage in the waking state. Dress designs plague me – relatively unusual, I can only presume, for one untrained in the discipline of fashion design – in my liminal state between full consciousness and total submission to sleep, as do stage designs and visions for paintings and drawings, of such form and colour. Similarly to Freud, although a prolific and diverse visionary thinker in his own right, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) states that, “…if a person holds the view that the unconscious plays a decisive part in the aetiology of neuroses, he will attribute a high practical importance to dreams as direct expressions of the unconscious.”[59] Jung continues, “…since, according to our hypothesis, the unconscious possess an aetiological significance, and since dreams are the direct expression of unconscious psychic activity, the attempt to analyse and interpret dreams is theoretically justified from a scientific standpoint.”[60] My only wish is that my subconscious mind could take a mental “photograph” of the inspirational “flashes”, to which I am occasionally subjected, with the purpose of transposing them through my conscious being, in order that I may realise their intent on a permanent and practical level. Spending time focussing on Decroux’s “scales” and corporeal technique, (along with the movement research undertaken during the two weeks under the instruction of Professor Thomas Leabhart in Paris), led me to a series of most vivid and, arguably, interpretive dreams, or visions; or, at least, it would seem that the work was the cause of these, as they were out of the ordinary and, as I later found, not uncommon amongst those new to the art.

     According to a contrasting source, (less scientific and more “spiritual”, although still working from what we could term a Freudian principle) Edwin Raphael: “Psychologists value the interpretation of dreams as indicative of the mental state of their patients, believing that dreams are the re-sorting of information, facts, fears and stresses absorbed by the conscious mind.”[61] Giving some credence to this viewpoint, it is a curious circumstance that many of the dreams experienced by myself in the bustling Parisian arrondissement of Belleville, during my induction into the world of corporeality, took, as their themes, infancy, birth, nurture, and cultivation. I am not, by any means, qualified to offer a definitive reading of any of these dreams; however, I, as well as the next person, may speculate as to their significance. To cite an example: I enter, in a turn of events quite different to that of my usual earth-bound existence, a vast greenhouse, situated in my parents’ garden; the giant greenhouse of my subconscious mind, plots itself the same co-ordinates as the actual glass building known to me in my youth, but it is much changed in form. This is the greenhouse of a committed and celebrated horticulturalist; and that aforementioned champion cultivator of fruit and vegetables is none other than myself. I walk around my organic temple - watering plants here . . . admiring growth there – and several others are present, (they have pre-empted my arrival no doubt), they admire, naturally, the wonder of my creations. The point of focus, however, the pinnacle of my creative prowess and botanical skill, is the birth of my tomato/apple hybrid; a thing of wonder. It is peculiar to me, observing my dream state, that I should have taken such a bold step as to cross, infect even, an apple with a tomato, as I have a dislike for the latter. To not that I did in fact “observe” that it was a dream state that I found myself in, opens the door to a series of questions. If we consider that, under the influence of an imaginative subconscious force, and subject to mental images, which appear vivid, real, and within our grasp, we can, at times, stand aside, in a manner of speaking, and accept that we are experiencing an almost hallucinatory occurrence, perhaps a pure consciousness, it does not seem irrational to wonder if, fleetingly, a cosmic consciousness has been reached. Meyer-Dinkgräfe writes: “Termed ‘cosmic consciousness’, a fifth state of consciousness is characterised by the co-existence of waking, or dreaming, or sleeping, and pure consciousness.”[62]

     Poignant, perhaps, to find such a wondrous narrative flowing through one’s subconscious mind, at a time when all previously-learnt approaches to movement, and performance per say, are being challenged and tested to the upper limit, in order for re-birth, through a new, alien, and sometimes unwelcome technique to begin to emerge. Despite his consistently attracting high regard in the upper echelons of physical theatre, certain aspects of Decroux’s technique have been, in one way or another, less than welcome for a variety of reasons by many esteemed artists, including Jean-Louis Barrault and Marcel Marceau, pupils and devout advocates of the inventor of corporeal mime, however, “…both have reservations about one or other of his doctrinaire assertions, or about some aspects of his method of ‘remoulding’ the body through painful exercises.”[63]  As the taste of the tomato became evident to me through the apple, the gathered crowd anticipating my consummation of said fruit, remoulded from otherwise natural forms, it’s unappealing, yet applauded and revolutionary invention felt, to me, as much of a mixed blessing as the new-found corporeal knowledge relayed to me. The onlookers of the dream became representative of my peers, who watched daily as I, initially, approached the purpose of our unity with, at times, fear and trepidation, not always, necessarily, moving with the tide that was the remoulding of our lifelong physical movements.

     Many dreams of pregnancy surrounded this episode, leading to further speculation that this new world, this new frame through which to view the art of the actor, had planted its seed within me, and that this seed required incubation and nurture, (the very promise of which the greenhouse brings to its saplings, coincidentally), to come to fruition, as the baby which presented itself in later dreams, perhaps as my confidence in the studio setting developed; strange that the tomato in the apple seemed more of a parasite or cancer, whereas the baby seemed to be an extension of nature rather than a distortion or bastardisation. This, however, could perhaps be due to the fact that the manifest baby appeared as a familiar and welcome sight in my mind’s eye, whereas the strange mutated fruit of earlier dreams was more an object of fear. The dreams changing, as they did over the fortnight period, for the better, may, I venture to suggest, have something to do with the gradual progression from complete outsider to the corporeal technique, anxious and self-conscious, to a more relaxed and comfortable position in my surroundings, as each day increasingly recognisable learning patterns began to emerge. Indeed, to researchers of theatre anthropology, known to me from the Paris-based Pas De Dieux company, these experiences are common and frequent amongst those exercising corporeal technique and movement research. Moreover, Leela Alaniz, Pas De Dieux, in fact, specifically asked me if I had experienced any nightmares during my time in Paris, as a reaction to the work undertaken. Leabhart writes of the movement research “scores” presented by each of us: “You must play it [the physical piece] as you would a musical composition, skilfully and soulfully, but without conscious thought.”[64] If, then, this corporeal, extra-daily movement, is to occur as a result of some subconscious activity released, as mentioned previously, via the knowledge of conscious technique, it is surely possible that these subconscious stirrings will leave a lasting mark, and the state of dreaming could well be a vent through which to facilitate their release.

     Whilst studying with Leabhart, one of the exercises practised by my colleagues, and myself stands as testament to Decroux’s own interest in human consciousness. Following is detailed an exercise, devised by Decroux, which, one could cautiously venture to propose pre-empts, to some degree, certainly at the very least complements, the more recent, academic studies into this new and polysemic world of “Theatre and Consciousness”:

1. Begin sitting on the front edge of a chair, one foot under the chair, one foot in front. The back, rounded in relaxation, should not touch the chair back. The head, inclined to the left side, places the face parallel to the audience. This stage is called sleeping with the eyes closed.

2. As the eyelids flutter, the head slowly moves toward the vertical (be careful not to move any other part of the body).

3. The eyelids open widely, revealing completely relaxed, asymmetrical, and out-of-focus eyes. This stage is called sleeping with the eyes open.

4. The eyes come into clear focus, while the face remains completely relaxed, mouth slightly open. This stage is called seeing and not understanding.

5. The head then lifts upward, pulling the neck and the remainder of the relaxed spine to a standing vertical. The mouth closes, and the face and scalp tighten. This stage is called seeing and understanding.

6. The body lifts off the chair, and the person becomes completely vertical standing up. Here one must exercise caution not to allow the pelvis to fall into an anterior tilt as one stands, creating a “wobble” through the spine.

7. One takes three steps forward, ending in second position. This is called seeing and understanding and acting upon what one understands.

8. Now we fall slowly, going through the above phases, as the spine crumples and the body rolls on the ground.

Upon contemplation of this exercise, entitled “Stages of Consciousness”[65], which I have witnessed, demonstrated by Leabhart, and practised, in a rather more basic and rudimentary manner, myself, I feel it reasonable to suggest that the stages highlighted above could well be applied as a frame through which to view to a broad spectrum of dramatic texts. As the above model shows the extended range of human states of consciousness, Meyer-Dinkgräfe explains the matter from an Indian philosophy perspective: “The model of the mind as proposed by Vedic Science, and as such based on Vedanta philosophy distinguishes, initially, between three basic states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, and sleeping.”[66] In terms of  “immediate application” of the above exercise, Leabhart advises that: “Every character in dramatic literature occupies one of these stages of consciousness, and during the play he or she moves upward or downward on the scale.”[67] Leabhart’s commentary is reflected in Meyer-Dinkgräfe’s findings, in that: “In drama, characters are either shown in a specific state of consciousness, or they talk about their own or other characters’ observed state of consciousness.”[68] As a further investigation, and possibly a dissertation study, I would be interested to read Shakespeare’s Hamlet, for instance, keeping the above model as the lens. In Hamlet’s procrastination, as an example, we see the stage “seeing and understanding”, left in a kind of limbo, unable to progress through the phases to “seeing and understanding and acting upon what one understands.” Further inspiration has been gained through reading Meyer-Dinkgräfe’s, “…example of the development of a character’s consciousness in drama…” using the character of Hamlet as the figurehead.

     Hindu philosophy advises us that: “Whether someone’s dharma is to be an artist will be known to the person in question, intuitively, by way of enjoyment of the chosen path, and success, both inward and outward.”[69] In his single-mindedness regarding the cause, “…the idealistic Decroux”[70], who, along with, “…his contemporaries in other arts rebelled with a vengeance against the nineteenth-century paradigms…[and] felt that it was essential to not only artistically, but morally, spiritually and politically as well, to show…disdain for the middle class, the routine, the status quo…”[71], invited many detractors for every admirer of his work. It would, however, seem that Decroux’s dharma led him not only to excel as a revolutionary artist, (albeit in a largely overlooked manner - orchestrated as part of his philosophy), but to change the face of theatre form and practice, paving the way for other leading lights of physical theatre to follow after him, and standing above many of his contemporaries as performance practitioner whose very principals would shape the consciousnesses of those who came into contact with him, including Marcel Marceau and Jean-Louis Barrault. As Jean Perret illustrates, however, Decroux’s extremist method provoked diverse reactions amongst those who came into contact with it:

Jean-Louis Barrault answered it with his idea of ‘total theatre’; Marcel Marceau responded by performing with face and hands [Decroux mistrusted the over-emphasis placed upon the face and hands during performance; often the face was covered entirely by neutral masks, even fabric]. Jacques Lecoq, for his part, responded in two stages: the first was to adopt the scientific analysis and deconstruction of movement and gesture; the second was to reject the ‘torture’ imposed on the actor’s body which, to him, could only lead to formalism and ‘virutosoism.’[72]

 Perret adds, however, as testament to Decroux’s widespread influence: “It remains true that Etienne Decroux was and still is a great catalyst, venerated or detested, who provoked the emergence of a wealth of physical approaches to modern theatre and dance, such as the experiments of Jerzy Grotowski, of Eugenio Barba or of Kantor; those of the Living Theatre and the Bread and Puppet; also those of Bob Wilson and Pina Bausch and the researches and innovations of Arianne Mnouchkine and of Peter Brook.”[73] In conclusion, as Decroux’s theatre practice came to be as a product of his own consciousness; the knock-on effect that the knowledge of this practice had on his contemporaries, and so to the following generations of key figures in art, and so on and so forth down the line, has meant that a collective consciousness has been reached and the fingerprints of theatre modified as a result.

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Additional Information

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/

http://www.hippocampe.asso.fr/pages/english.html

http://www.lucidity.com/LD8DFM.html