Re: Meyerhold & CHAT

From: Yrjö Engestrm (yrjo.engestrom@helsinki.fi)
Date: Sun Jan 07 2001 - 02:38:12 PST


Judith, just a quick note on Stanislavsky. The Meyerhold anecdote implies
one side of Stansilavsky's work and thought - the side most widely adopted
in the US. The other side is that Stanislavsky built his theory on the
foundation of external physical actions (exactly what Meyerhold suggest in
the anecdote). I've written a bit about this in a paper titled 'Theater as a
model system for learning to create', it appeared in 1988 in the Quarterly
Newsletter of the LCHC (Vol. 10, p. 54-67), also as chapter 11 in my book
'Learning, Working and Imagining' (1990).

Yrjo Engestrom

> From: Judith Diamondstone <diamonju@rci.rutgers.edu>
> Reply-To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2001 03:36:24 -0500
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: Meyerhold & CHAT
> Resent-From: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Resent-Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 00:42:11 -0800 (PST)
>
> Let me ask somewhat differently -- Nate ends the list of Vygotsky-related
> texts on his website with a comment by Nikolai Veresov on Vygotsky's use of
> the word "stage" in wh. Versov refers to Stanislavsky (& Eisenstein) as
> acquaintances of Vygotsky (both of whom defined the term "category" in
> dramatic terms as :
>> "collision", "event", dramatic unit, and the unit of analysis of drama: it
> might be a dialogue (mostly) or emotional explosion and so on.)
>
> There's an anecdote about Meyerhold that goes something like this:
> "Stanislavski, when he wants his actors to feel fear, tells them to imagine
> a situation in which they felt frightened. When I want my actors to feel
> fear, I tell them to run like hell."
>
> In other words, the action leads to the idea/affect, not vice versa &( thus
> affect can be actively shaped....)
>
> Now apparently Bekhterev(sp?) knew Meyerhold... (but Vygotsky knew
> Stanislavski?)
>
> Clealy, materialist psychology had much in common with materialist theatre;
> I am assuming that these commonalities were pursued by intellectuals of
> Vy's era, and that they have been pursued by others in the CHAT tradition
> since then.
>
> Can anyone suggest specific references? Mike - is there an index of
> articles in old MCA/LCHC issues?
> Thanks...
>
> Judy
>
>
> V's comment on term "stage":
> The task of Vygotsky in 1930-1931 was to create the psychology in terms of
> drama. Thestage is the place the dramatic development takes place. The
> stage (theatre) has two planes - social plane (dimension) and individual
> plane. The planes only make sense relative to the stage and they are
> connected as two projections of the stage where the child is not a
> spectator, but participant.
>
> Category is the philosophical concept. How can one imagine that the
> function exists as a category? Sounds strange, but according to
> Stanislavsky (famous theatre director Vygotsky used to know) and Sergey
> Eisenshtein (filmmaker and a friend of Vygotsky) "category" in the drama
> means "collision", "event", dramatic unit, and the unit of analysis of
> drama: it might be a dialogue (mostly) or emotional explosion and so on.
> Vygotsky is speaking about development as a process of events,
> collisions and their reflections in both planes.
>
>
> At 01:56 PM 1/5/01 -0500, you wrote:
>> Have their been any LCHC or MCA articles that make reference to Meyerhold?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Judy
>>
>>
>
>



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