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Select Language English LANGUAGE Submit FONT SIZE JOURNAL HELP Context- Sensitive Help Quick- Reference Guide (pdf) Documentation @ SFU Support Forum @ SFU ARTICLE TOOLS Abstract Print this article Indexing metadata How to cite item Email this article (Login required) Email the author (Login required) HOME ABOUT LOGIN SEARCH CURRENT ARCHIVES Home > Volume 17 Number 1 / Spring 1996 > Forsythe SPIRITUALITY IN ACTOR TRAINING JAMES FORSYTHE Elements of the spiritual practices of other cultures, speciﬁcally Taoism and Zen Buddhism, are employed in 'Western' conservatory acting schools. This article will examine the context of the relationship between spirituality and actor training using examples from the techniques of speciﬁc teachers working in the ﬁeld. Certains éléments des pratiques spirituelles issues d'autres cultures, particulièrement le Taoïsme et le Boudhisme Zen, sont utilisés dans les Conservatoires de théâtre «occidentaux». Cet article étudie le contexte des rapports entre la spiritualité et la formation d'acteur en s'appuyant sur l'exemple des approches de quelques professeurs qui travaillent dans ce domaine. The creative process of living and experiencing a part is an organic one, founded on the physical and spiritual laws governing the nature of man (Stanislavski 1936, 44). Konstantin Stanislavski was a strong proponent of combining the intellectual, or known, and the spiritual, or unknown. In his advice to actors he wrote, "So an actor turns to his spiritual and physical creative instrument. His mind, will and feelings combine to mobilize all his inner elements . . . out of this fusion of elements arises an important inner state ... the inner creative mood" (Stanislavski 1963, 81). In the introduction to his book Free Play, Stephen Nachmanovitch describes access to an inner life as, "that quality of connectedness and wholeness, which we also recognize in a ﬁne pianist, painter, or poet" (Nachmanovitch, 5). What is this quality of connectedness and wholeness? If it refers to a spiritual concept, is there a connection between the spiritual teachings of other cultures and the training of actors? In this article I will pursue this question, employing interviews with a dozen of the leading teachers in Canada and Britain and through an examination of the literature in both ﬁelds. My research leads me to believe that there is a direct link, that spiritual elements form a strong foundation in the training of actors in ways so prevalent as to be common place. In these times of increasing demands for accountability I believe we need to appropriate the spirituality of other cultures to inform our acting training. It allows us to get back to the basics in order to connect with the basic humanity of our lives. In my twenty-ﬁve years as a conservatory theatre student, professional actor, and university teacher I have perceived a common search being undertaken by my peers and myself. What is it that brings creativity and inspiration? From the beginning of my actor training I also became aware that some of the techniques taught in the studio to explain these essentially unexplainable questions had Spirituality in Actor Training | Forsythe | Theatre Research in... https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/TRIC/article/view/7160/8219 1 of 11 24/03/2016, 22:10 RELATED ITEMS Show all JOURNAL CONTENT Search Search Scope All Search Browse By Issue By Author By Title Other Journals USER Username Password Remember me Login INFORMATION For Readers For Authors For Librarians their roots in other cultures. Whether it was yoga, meditation, Tai Chi or other martial arts training there was an eﬀort made to allow me to contact an "inner" side to myself. Recently, my employment as a teacher has caused me to take a closer look at my own techniques and exercises and to examine the whole question of the spirituality of actor training. While no single culture or place has a monopoly on spirituality, the belief systems of Asia and their connections to the arts have held a fascination for the West since Marco Polo. Perhaps because the languages of China and Japan are pictures as well as linear abstractions the artists of those lands can make better use of their non-linear or peripheral mind. We in the West often cannot or will not understand what cannot be represented to us using words. It is this unconventional knowledge that is at the heart of Taoism and Zen. They seek to restore the spontaneity and naïve selﬂessness of the child-a kind of benevolent anarchy. Both belief systems strive for a state of freedom where there is no separation from mind and thought. There is only experience. Literally translated Tao is the way of life. It is this desire for spontaneity and creative freedom that has caused our teachers of Acting, including myself, to look to Asia for help and guidance. Being suﬃciently removed from my own formal training I thought it wise to go back to Theatre school to see what had changed and what new techniques were being used. In the spring of 1993 1 attended the National Voice Intensive at Simon Fraser University and the following year I conducted personal interviews with faculty members of the National Theatre School of Canada and Manchester Metropolitan University in England. In addition I exchanged letters or phone conversations with various other teachers, mentors and peers. This is a distillation of that research and is meant to be a snapshot of the methodology of those particular people. Most of the teachers that I spoke with have undergone some sort of period of spiritual questioning in their own lives and are aware of the impact this search has had on them. Whether it involves working with a primary source in the country of origin or using secondary sources, many have consciously exposed themselves to the spirituality of other cultures. But as Virginia Snyders, Director of Drama at the Guildhall School in London said: An awareness of the uses of meditation and an awareness of other cultures is a necessary part of actor training. I would ﬁnd it diﬃcult to deﬁne exactly what exercises we use from foreign cultures because inevitably teachers, if their teaching is to be worthwhile, cannot just grab at foreign ideas but must teach from themselves and their own commitment. Consequently, although many of my staﬀ use exercises from Japan and Russia (and some of them have worked in India and China), I suspect even they would ﬁnd it hard to deﬁne exactly which exercises come from other countries . . . (Snyders) This diﬃculty was conﬁrmed in my research. People were hesitant to discuss the subject of spirituality in actor training for fear of being misunderstood or accused of preaching. They recognize the inﬂuences on their own lives, but they rarely speak of it in the studio. Inevitably though, as the National Theatre School's movement coach Jo Lesly, whose research interests include work with First Nations spirituality, stated, "If it is in my life, it's in my work and in my teaching" (Lesly). We live in a secular age, an age of reason and intellect. If we cannot describe something in words we are unlikely to accept its existence as fact. We have separated our minds from our bodies and both from our emotions. And while it is true that it has become recently en vogue to get in touch with one's feelings, emotion is still something not to be seen in public. This creates a paradox for actors who must, while remaining a part of their society, go beyond the bounds of normal behavior. They must ﬁnd their own voice and the courage to have Spirituality in Actor Training | Forsythe | Theatre Research in... https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/TRIC/article/view/7160/8219 2 of 11 24/03/2016, 22:10 enough faith in their talent and creativity to allow them to evoke something of the "greater" for the rest of us. Their emotions, by the very nature of their art, must be seen in public. Much of today's actor training needs to focus on this inner state because by the time students reach a conservatory school in their early twenties they have been conditioned by society to distrust structure and belief systems. Brian Doubt, former instructor at Canada's National Theatre School and currently on the faculty of Concordia University, put the challenge facing acting teachers this way: Students come to class 'in their heads,' with a certain intellectual preoccupation. So one of the challenges is to get them to make a connection between the mind, the body and the emotions. This intellectual preoccupation makes itself manifest by student behavior: cynical, not trusting, not comfortable, not aware of physical idiosyncrasies, unsure of their emotional life and with a separate body and mind. (Doubt) It is this separation of mind and body that perhaps provides the chief rationale for incorporating spiritual discipline and methods into actor training. The goal is to ground actors in their bodies and to the earth; for without a strong sense of centre we have no base from which to travel. Without a strong sense of self there can be no starting point for training; because a knowledge of the ﬂow of energy within our bodies is uploads/Voyage/ spirituality-in-actor-training-forsythe-theatre-research-in-canada-recherches-the-a-trales-au-canada.pdf