Abstract
We learn performance techniques in three main ways: playing, rehearsing and performing. Each of these relates to an aspect of development of the performance self: 1 Playing: learning to express the self 2 Rehearsing: learning to express the ‘self’ of another — creating a role 3 Performing: the interaction of expressed self with other selves Seen as a dialectic, playing concerns being, rehearsing representing, and performance is the synthesis of the two. All three stages of this dialectic take place in the context of group work, whether in (1) the classroom or playground, (2) the rehearsal studio, or (3) the theatre. This chapter will deal with the first two categories, the remainder of the book the third.
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Notes
Ruth Ault, Children’s Cognitive Development (New York, 1977) passim. This is a very useful introduction to both Piaget’s and the American school of developmental psychology.
Ibid., pp. 18–22.
Cf. Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilisation (London, 1969) pp. 30–5. The terms originate in Sigmund Freud’s work, but my use is intended to echo Marcuse’s discussion.
Friedrich Schiller, Über die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen, in Werke in Drei Bänden, ed. Herbert G. Goepfert (Munich, 1966) II, 445–520. The translations are my own.
Ibid., p. 481.
Bertolt Brecht, Gesammelte Werke in 20 Bänden, Werke Ausgabe Edition Suhrkamp, ed. Elizabeth Hauptmann (Frankfurt, 1967) IX, 762, 764. All translations from Brecht are my own.
Rudolf Laban, Modern Educational Dance, 3rd edn, rev. with additions by Lisa Ullmann (London, 1975) passim.
Brecht, Gesammelte Werke, IV, 1769.
Laban, Modern Educational Dance, pp. 29–51.
G. E. Lessing, Hamburgische Dramaturgie: ‘Vierzehntes Stuck, den 16 Junius, 1787’, in Gotthold Ephraim Lessings Sämtliche Schriften, 23 vols, ed. Franz Muncker, 2nd edn (Stuttgart, 1886) IX, 239. The translation is my own.
Karl Gutzkow, letter to Büchner, in Büchner, Werke, II, 490–1).
Edward Gordon Craig, On the Art of the Theatre (London, 1914) pp. 59–94.
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© 1987 Julian Hilton
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Hilton, J. (1987). I Engraft You New: Learning to Perform. In: Performance. New Directions in Theatre. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18953-3_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18953-3_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-38573-9
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