“At its simplest, physical-theatre is theatre where the primary means of creation occurs through the body rather than through the mind.” (Callery; 2001, p 4) After engaging with process and performance, it is clear that the element of play is a key component to devising physical theatre. Most physical theatre pieces have very little or no spoken text within them and so the actor has to communicate his intentions to the audience through his body. The element of play should only occur through the body and not the mind; the actor should be focused and aware however not thinking about what his next move should be.
Chekhov believes that the body and mind constantly work together and have great influences on each other “an undeveloped or muscularly overdeveloped body may easily dim the activity of the mind, dull the feelings or weaken the will.” (Chekhov; 2002, p 1) and so he suggests that actor should have a disciplined balance between mind and body as he “must consider his body as an instrument for expressing creative ideas on the stage.” (Chekhov; 2002, p 1) In order for physical theatre to be effective the actor needs a high level of concentration, imagination and discipline.
Genre hybridisation is where different genres are combined together to create a new genre. Ana Sanchez-Colberg implies that Physical theatre is a cross between avant-garde theatre and dance. Physical theatre is experimental like avant-garde theatre and physically similar to dance, however is this enough to say that physical theatre is a hybrid of the two genres?
Dance is generally choreographed; the movements are created with the mind rather than the body to ensure that they flow on from each other. If music is used with dance then the movements must be in time with the beat and an audience would expect dance to be perfect and beautiful.
Physical theatre in that respect is extremely different to dance as it should be created with the body, not the mind as mentioned earlier and dance is generally created with technique whereas physical theatre is created through exploring the body “Physical training is a process leading to creative freedom rather than a prescriptive set of techniques. Its purpose is to enable actors to become more transformable and more expressive.” (Callery; 2001, p 19) If music is used within physical theatre then it is only used to add to the atmosphere, it does not matter if the movements are in time with the beat. Physical theatre is not about perfection and beauty but it is about stylised movement which expresses emotion and communicates to an audience. Although the genres share similarities there is not enough evidence to be able to categorise physical theatre as a hybrid genre.
DV8 are a contemporary physical theatre company who were formed in 1986 and have since created 16 dance pieces. Lloyd Newson the artistic director of DV8 says “One of the things about DV8's work is it is about subject matter. For a lot of people who go and see dance, dance is not about anything. DV8 is about something.” And DV8’s artistic policy states “DV8 Physical Theatre's work is about taking risks, aesthetically and physically, about breaking down the barriers between dance and theatre and, above all, communicating ideas and feelings clearly and unpretentiously.” This shows that they are already breaking the conception of physical theatre being a hybrid genre as they are stating differences between dance and physical theatre.
Strange Fish (1992) is a brilliant example of how DV8 fits into the physical theatre category. This particular piece used pedestrian as well as stylised movements and all the movements communicate meaning to the audience, no movement was forced or done for the sake of it. Throughout the entire piece it was evident that the element of play was at work and none of the movement looked jerky or robotic which would suggest that they were not thinking about their next move. The company moved away from the dance genre and did not try to conform to it at any point as some of their movements did not look beautiful or pretty. Although this performance had a narrative and intention, it was open to audience interpretation.
Bibliography
Books
Callery, D. (2001) Through the body, a practical guide to physical theatre. London: Nick Hern Books.
Chekhov, M (2002). To the Actor. 2nd Ed, London: Routledge.
Websites
DV8. 2010. Artistic Policy. [Online]
Available at: http://www.dv8.co.uk/about_dv8/artistic_policy [Accessed 27th February 2010]
DV8. 2010. Interviews. [Online]
Available at: http://www.dv8.co.uk/about_dv8/interview_article_19_lloyd_newson_and_dv8 [Accessed 27th February 2010]
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