Comments on: Accidental Art – an experiment in theatre making http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/accidental-art-an-experiment-in-theatre-making/ Group authored publication covering theatre and the performing arts in London and beyond Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:24:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Tania Batzoglou http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/accidental-art-an-experiment-in-theatre-making/#comment-5522 Tania Batzoglou Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:05:19 +0000 http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/?p=2760#comment-5522 Hello both and thank you for your comments about the project Accidental Art. I appreciate the fact that people read and commented on it. The dramatherapy method that we used - in wihich I am fully qualified- has nothing to do with Moreno's Psychodrama or Fox's plyaback theatre or event Strasberg's Method Acting. I have as well bad experiences from various self-indulgent exercises facilitated from directors that had not idea on how to deal with actor's strong emotional reactions. I suggest the Sesame method because it is oblique: nobody reveals personal issues or digs past emotional traumas. There is no kind of interpration or analysis and the work is based on the body and on the images created by it. If you wish have a look at Sesame's website: www.sesame-institute.org The application of the method into actor's training took place for the first time as a first step of my pracitce-based PhD research. Hello both and thank you for your comments about the project Accidental Art. I appreciate the fact that people read and commented on it. The dramatherapy method that we used – in wihich I am fully qualified- has nothing to do with Moreno’s Psychodrama or Fox’s plyaback theatre or event Strasberg’s Method Acting. I have as well bad experiences from various self-indulgent exercises facilitated from directors that had not idea on how to deal with actor’s strong emotional reactions. I suggest the Sesame method because it is oblique: nobody reveals personal issues or digs past emotional traumas. There is no kind of interpration or analysis and the work is based on the body and on the images created by it. If you wish have a look at Sesame’s website: http://www.sesame-institute.org The application of the method into actor’s training took place for the first time as a first step of my pracitce-based PhD research.

]]> By: Kate Foy http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/accidental-art-an-experiment-in-theatre-making/#comment-5516 Kate Foy Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:37:10 +0000 http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/?p=2760#comment-5516 [<em>Note: This comment was originally printed on the <a href="http://friendfeed.com/worldtheatre/44670ce7/diana-damian-conducted-interview-with-3" rel="nofollow">World Theatre FriendFeed Group</a> and is re-printed here with permission from the author.</em>] I read the article with a mounting sense of mild-level panic. 'Oh dear, self-indulgent 'theatre' produced via spurious drama therapy exercises at work again!' As a young actor training in the late 60s-early 70s I fell victim to some of this stuff, and I have to say I still feel anxiety at unscripted, unstructured, unsupervised work that draws upon actors' willingness to 'open themselves' to affect-state experimentation in the name of performance creation. Of course I'm not at all suggesting that the participants in the project that forms the article are unqualified, but as you might gather, the tone of this response is obviously part of the lingering resentment I carry with me from my own experiences of this kind of work. Other workshops I've attended over the years where this kind of approach was taken often resulted in confusion and panic by the actors ... and for me, a pulling back which was simply non-productive. The performance creation was quite frankly of dubious 'value.' You'll see, reading between these lines, that I value the craft of acting and performance-creation very highly. [Note: This comment was originally printed on the World Theatre FriendFeed Group and is re-printed here with permission from the author.]

I read the article with a mounting sense of mild-level panic. ‘Oh dear, self-indulgent ‘theatre’ produced via spurious drama therapy exercises at work again!’ As a young actor training in the late 60s-early 70s I fell victim to some of this stuff, and I have to say I still feel anxiety at unscripted, unstructured, unsupervised work that draws upon actors’ willingness to ‘open themselves’ to affect-state experimentation in the name of performance creation.

Of course I’m not at all suggesting that the participants in the project that forms the article are unqualified, but as you might gather, the tone of this response is obviously part of the lingering resentment I carry with me from my own experiences of this kind of work.

Other workshops I’ve attended over the years where this kind of approach was taken often resulted in confusion and panic by the actors … and for me, a pulling back which was simply non-productive. The performance creation was quite frankly of dubious ‘value.’ You’ll see, reading between these lines, that I value the craft of acting and performance-creation very highly.

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