The Grotowski Sourcebook is a collection of essays from critics and other
theatrical collaborators, including some of Grotowski's own texts,
discussing the influence he has had on drama and performance of today.
One way of discussing his influence is to read about Lisa Walford's
personal experience of being trained in accordance to his technique. She
participated in the 'Objective Drama Program,' at the University of
California-Irvine, a training programme that was developed as a result of
Grotowski's research into the ancient rituals of many different cultures.
He explored the basics of the rituals, stripped them down and worked on
the barebones of each performative movement.
With training from James Slowiak, Lisa experienced this intense training
programme. Lisa describes the main elements of her training. First is
physical action; each partaker had to be in top physical condition,
working on 6 individual exercises that were designed to work on certain
weaknesses of that person, not as a group training exercise. 'Along with
the physical structure of the training, participants developed a precise
flow of associations.' By using memory recall, the performers could
perfect the movements and move onto the next part of training.
Vocal work; at the core of Grotowski's research is the 'yantra.' It comes
from ancient Sanskrit and it is believed to 'connect with the laws of the
universe, or nature.' He wanted the performer to link sound with movement,
but from the core, using instinct, but then perfecting it so that when it
'arrived' it would be a pure sound by concentrating on the vibrations
produced.
Group activities; these activities had no narrative or dialogue, but
concentrated on specific, pre-determined movements, or very restricted
improvisation. In these exercises, they would also play games, such as the
'watching' game. 'The participant is required simultaneously to maintain
active engagement and detached awareness.' There are different sections of
the game, led by a leader in the group, ensuring that each performer is
pushed to their limits, both in attention and endurance. This is to
develop the 'physical dialogue' between the performers and the connections
or disconnections that can occur.
Individual actions; having worked in groups, it was time to concentrate on
solo performances. These projects required research into a 'literary,
historical or mythological figure' of their own gender for their first
'action.' With spectators having two questions in mind, did you believe
it? And did you understand it? Slowiak would then bring certain performers
together and the group would decide whether it worked or not. Grotowski
believed in 'art as vehicle,' a way for performers to 'encounter his own
cultural traditions in order to further his journey of personal
development.'
Performance structures; by using inspiration from The Egyptian Book of the
Dead and Indian Tales to create performance that wasn't rehearsed and
didn't follow the traditional performance structure with narration and
characterisation etc. Instead he wanted to concentrate on the 'rendering'
of the performance structure, using song rather than dialogue and what
would be instinctive as a result of the training.
For many, Grotowski's research and experimentation of training style,
bringing it back to the basics, lead the way for many other practitioners
to do the same. Not to concentrate on any text until the movement is
perfected, only then will performance be true and believable.
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