Julia Fresco Book Review

ANNE BOGART's 'Viewpoints'

Anne Bogart and Tina Landau are theatre directors that developed the 'Viewpoints' theory, based on Mary Overlie's discovery of 'The Six Viewpoints' of dance, and it involves theatrical techniques for actors using time and space.

I have found that the emotions Bogart focus' on are Terror, Disorientation and Difficulty. She also indulges in the role of embarrassment, violence, stereotype, humor, doubt, interest, cultural memory and tradition in theatrical directing. Her primary interest is the emotion of terror and how it plays an important role in the creative process of theatre.
Terror is used for its power of not knowing how to face the unknown, and the artists job is to instigate mystery and terror into the audience, which ultimately allows for diversity. In difficulty she believes we find the encouragement to push ourselves to alternate performances, and that the theatre's purpose is to 'remind us of our terror and our humanity' (p. 7). Without the emotion of terror we risk losing our energy and it is vital to open ourselves and our senses to it, in order to test our creative abilities. When directing Anne Bogart often begins rehearsals feeling uncomfortable and insecure, not knowing what she is doing, and the terror of the unknown pushes her to observing the actors and experimenting with ideas. Furthermore the actors should not be controlled, instead should contribute as much as possible through spontaneity or any other means.
Arguments and conflicts are seen as positive contributes to the creative process because they create diversity and contrasts, as agreements may well bore the production. The director should be intuitive and avoid sitting down, as they lose their connection to themselves, the stage, and most importantly the actors.
Courage is also very important when rehearsing, presenting new horizons. Finally Anne Bogart's sense of diversity overpowers her idea of theatrical success, as she believes that we need to embrace our personal differences, and that we are unique.

Tina Landau wrote about Source-work, Viewpoints, and Composition.
Source-work is Bogart's way of getting in touch with the work source, emotionally and intellectually, at the beginning of rehearsal for all individuals. It is the process by which you take time to enter into the chosen material, as most often the material contains in-depth concepts, and it may take up to as long as a month for every participant to comprehend.
The Viewpoints 'are a philosophy of movement translated into a technique for 1) training performers and 2) creating movement on stage' (p. 20). Anne Bogart's viewpoints include: TIME; tempo, duration, kinaesthetic response, repetition (internal/external), and SPACE; shape, gesture, architecture, spatial relationship and topography. Meanwhile the 'vocal viewpoints' involve pitch, dynamics and timbre.
Finally Composition is the process by which the artist selects and arranges the theatrical components of language into his/her piece of work to be presented for the stage. This 'provides a structure for working from our impulses and intuition' (p. 27), and it is the method for practicing the creator's art, as is the Viewpoints for the actors.