-----Mensagem original-----
De: Judy Diamondstone <diamonju@rci.rutgers.edu>
Para: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Data: Terça-feira, 30 de Janeiro de 2001 17:55
Assunto: Re: En: Resume of Yrjv-Kallinen's Theatre as a model system for learning to create
Ricardo, that was a succinct and thorough summary!
Thanks.
Is Stans's principle of the "through line" of action what you call the principle of "contextualization" --?
According to the authors, "both Stan and Leon emphasize that a singular action must be seen in a larger context, as one link in a chain". This "chain" is called "through action" by Stan and "activity" by Leon. I preffered call it contextualization - of an action or actions.
Do you know much about Stan's students, esp. M. and V.?
Not much. Only by some books available in portuguese and by deposition and lectures of some theatre professsors/people. There's a book, written by an italian researcher on russian pre and post revolutionary theatre named ANGELO MARIA RIPELLINO, called, in Italian, IL TRUCCO E L'ANIMA (1965). Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino/Italy [In Portuguese, O TRUQUE E A ALMA (1996). Editora Perspectiva, Săo Paulo/Brazil. Something like THE TRICK AND THE SOUL, in English]. In this book, there is a hole chapter dedicated to each of them (Stanislavskii, Viera Fiodorovna Komissarjévskaia, Vakhtangov, Meyerhold, Tairov and one chapter about the return of Meyerhold to the Art Theatre of Moscow, directed by Stanislavsky, not many times before he, Meyerhold, had be murdered by stalinist police - after his wife "suicide")
I'd like to understand the different methods of M. and V. in terms of THEIR inner contradictions, as well as in contrast to their teacher's.
M's BIOMECHANIC method seem to me too much influenced by Pavlov's conditionated reflex theory, although M was interested in what was specifically theatrical or cultural-historical in the kind of comunication mediated by the theatrical sign. At the end of this life, when he was not so much apreciatted by russian Government, he had given up his experiments with biomechanic and was inclined to go deeper in the study on the arbitrary feature of any comunication through theatre language or, in other words, the cultural-historical essence of theatrical sign (There's a study of ARLETE CAVALIERE called O INSPETOR GERAL DE GÓGOL/MEYERHOLD: UM ESPETÁCULO SÍNTESE, published in Portuguese, by Perspectiva, in 1996. Something like GÓGOL/MEYERHOLD'S THE INSPECTION [Gógol's famous play title. I'm not sure of the correct translation to English]: A SYNTHESIS SPECTACLE. In this study, she conducts the reader to such a conclusion). Cole [In: LURIA, A. R. THE CONSTRUCTION OF MIND], for example, reveals that Zaporozhets - One of Vygotsky/Luria/Leont'ev's disciple - used to watch the spetacles of Meyerhold and films made by Eisenstein, testing if the audience did understand the theatrical signs used by them. Also, according to Cole, M and E asked Vygotsky's group to elaborate applications to be used after a play presentation and films sessions. Zinchenko and Davydov, too, state that Vygotsky knew them - M. and E. [In: DANIELS, Harry (org.) CHARTING THE AGENDA: EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY AND VYGOTSKY, 1993, Routledge]
I've been reading about M., who was inclined throughout much of his career to link his theatre to the world 'outside' though later in his career he seems less inclined to do that. I'm curious about the "inside-outside" way of thinking about individual/social interrelations that seems salient to Vygotsky's thinking/psychology as well as the dramatists' -- I mean specifically the question of "which comes first?" Stan. seems to have worked "both ways", though most of us in the West know him as working with "inside-->outside" methods. I've no doubt that Yrjo's is the truer reading.
There's a lot to think about here.
Yes, there is.
At 03:22 PM 1/30/01 -0200, you wrote:
>>>>
I read with much interest Yrjv-kallinen's article. It reveals that the authors did study and do know Stanislaviski's and Leont'ev's theoretic systems very well.
Below, there is a resume of it (please, help me if I forgot something important):
1 - After a brief exposition of the two russian thinkers, they explicit 3 parallels between Stan/Leon's conceptual paradigms of activity:
(1) Priority of physical, external/object-oriented, instrumentally mediated actions;
(2) Emphasis on the overall/motivating factors of an activity;
(3) The importance of contextualization of every singular actions.
2 - They make clear that in Stan's system the subject is the actor/actress and the object the part-play-theatrical representation of a dramatic text. In Leon's paradigm, the subject is the human being and the object is any one, towards which the behaviour of a human being is directed/oriented to.
3 - After doing so, they figure out 2 aspects of contradiction detected in Stan's system:
(I) Seeking for truthfullness X exclusion of the outside world;
(II) Free acting X adherence to the strict playwright's dialogue and "rubricas" (rubrics? [f.e. instructions related to actors/actresses moving, character gestual repertory, scenary descriptions etc]);
4 - Thereon, they analyze how professionals in Finland (1985) reconstruct their own work according to three instructions presented them in a workshop conducted by the authors:
(a) describe the work as it was "used to be";
(b) describe the work as it is;
(c) identify the main contradictions of their present work;
(d) sketch the synthesis of those contradictions in future.
The finlandian theatre professionals were divided in 4 groups:
(1) Actors - asked for more independence and less stress in work in their synthesis (the object was the text or the role);
(2) Directors - quested for authonomy, considering the division of labour in terms of the social role of theatre in the world in their synthesis (the object was the text or the role);
(3) Playwritters - remarked their individual economic independence as a solution to the feeling of opression and subordination to the group (the object was the people they try to influence to);
(4) Theatre-Educators - saw themselves as becoming instructional bureaucrats (the object was students)
So, the authors figured out that:
(a) the groups did not really identify essencial contradictions in their work but rather listed problems;
(b) they all revealled aspiration to authonomy within the theatre.
In the discussion that followed presentation by all sub-groups a "quest for further, expansive working out of the object was expressed". The authors believe the understanding of contradicitions beyond the step in which was located the group needs a moving up to more two other steps:
(Step 2) lifeworld X selfsuficient world of theatre;
(Step 3) use value X exchange value of an object in capitalist society.
Ending the article, they discuss some aspects of pedagogical implications of theater in education. As Galvin Bolton, they criticize the idea of drama as a liberator of individual potentials of creative self-expression and advocate a meaning of drama as something that results from the interplay between the real and imagined world, as in Bolton's own words: "a collective experiencing, celebrating (...) on what we share, on what ways we are alike". But they can not agree with this author when he states that "above all drama is a mental state". To them, this statement of Bolton reveals a reduction of drama to the Stan's "mentalism".
According to the authors, the problem of "mentalism" is essential because, for it, "creation and production are something (...) taking place within the head of the individual" not bringing a open minded view of societal life.
Finally, they bold 3 dimensions of the contradiction found in theatre as a productive activity:
(1) self-suficient of theatrical activity X interplay between real and imagined worlds;
(2) mentalism X intersubjectivity;
(3) internalization X objective creation and production.
The authors, like Goodman, understand theatre as colletive worldmaking:
"we may consider theatre as an ideal model system for learning to create collectively imagined worlds"
They conclude that any attack to the core problem of theatre activity - according to them, that of turnning an ideal imagined world into something real - must provide instruments for dealing with inner contradiction of artifacts (use value X exchage value). So, theatre in education may deal with the same metodological questions that are faced in the productive activity of theatre.
The authors believe that the models of activity, exposed and analized by them, can be tools with which theatre people and theatre educators could (re)think their social praxis and "learn to create collectively imagined worlds".
Ricardo Ottoni Vaz Japiassu
Universidade do Estado da Bahia-Uneb
Cond. Aldeia de Trobogy
Rua B1, Bl. 49C/301
Patamares - Salvador
41680140 BAHIA
Brasil
Fone: (071) 3660923
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