Leonie Eliott-Graves
Summary of week 3 reading: Govan et al Making a performance

Roots of Somatic Practice
• Contemporary physical practices have been influenced by early
twentieth –century dance, mime, and
theatre and circus practices.
• They have also been inspired by socio-political, cultural and
anthropological experiences
• Much of this work places great importance on personal expression
• The idea of the 'experienced body' is central in this article as it
is central to many physical performance makers. This leads to a
performance which is really made by the whole group or company and
which is not just performed.
• Physical based performances also use psychophysical responses in the
training in order for the bodies of the performers to be able to
present complex issues effectively.
• It is also important to note that "Lecturer and practitioner Dymphna
suggests that physical performance started as part of a shift away from
Stanislavskian approaches to actor training and towards devising
performance 'through the body'" This article, therefore, also
supports the idea of a clear distinction between conventional and
physical performance.
• Many practitioners of physical performance focus on the body in order
to explore the capabilities and limits of the body and to celebrate the
athletic body.
• However in many physical performances the frailty of the human body
is also explored.
• There are many similarities between physical performance and the
circus traditions especially concerning the idea of the power and
limitations of the human body.
• In physical performance as is the case in circus performances there
is often a role reversal between the men and the women, which breaks
the gender stereotypes (this was true also in the BMT's performance
Total Rethink).
• It is very difficult to define physical theatre because we are unable
to group together identical characteristics as this practice is very
diverse. However the article refers to Dymphna Callery who suggests a
few common characteristics of physical performances such as: "the actor
as creator; collaborative working methods; the work is somatically
lead; an open actor- audience relationship; and importance of live-ness
to the work. All we can say therefore is that the end of the twentieth
century saw a rise in physical based performance influenced by dance,
mime, circus and theatre practices of that century.

The inside body
• There is an idea presented in this article about the body as a
holistic entity, which suggests that the body's physical and
psychological parts are connected and inseparable. This idea also
implies that the body is vitally important concerning human experience,
and also that the body has the tendency to act as a whole entity and
not in separate parts. This idea has become central to many
practitioners of physical based performance who have also looked to
Eastern theatre and martial arts in order to develop this strong bond
between mind and body.
The living body
• The idea of the experienced body is also developed in the article.
This idea suggests that the human body feels and remembers human
experiences and that physical performers should recall these imprinted
experiences and reproduces them in the performance.
• An important point to quote from the text is that: "the body is a
product of social and historical modes; it is able to both read and
respond to the environment around it".

The extraordinary body

• Many physical performances are concerned with the imprinting of the
human experiences onto the human body.
• There are some companies such as Goat Island who intermix the able
with the disabled bodies in their performances as well as the ordinary
together with the extraordinary and thus make a complete representation
of the human body and its experiences.
How many of the ideas presented were found in the performance of
Total Rethink seen in class:
• Gender swapping was evident in the performance
• Elements of the circus tradition where also evident(mainly the gender
switching)
• Performance was definitely centered on the body although language was
used to communicate subtler messages.
• However it did not seem like the performance was exploring or
celebrating the potential and strength of the human body. The
performers did not seem to be pushing their bodies to their limits.
• The work, also, did not seem to be that collaborative and there were
hints that it was a one sided creation followed by the others.
• There wasn't evidence of an open performer-audience relationship. In
fact the group performed to the audience in a rather conventional way
with the audience not seeming to partake in the performance.