Hi All!

For some years now I have been fasinated by the idea of an integrated approach to theatre/acting/drama. The first time I heard of the Integral Institute was when my mum forwarded me the link to the conversation between Ken Wilbur and Julia Ormond. I trained as a professional actress, and did my dissertation on the possible relevence of Yoga (as a total practice, not just the hatha yoga aspect) to the actor. IN the fours years since I graduated I have done little to further my research on the subject, but if there's anyone out there with a similar fascination for Integral Theatre, i'd love to connect!


love and light


melina

---

"Poetry is the spontaneous expression of the inner attitudes of the soul"

Hi Melina

 

What a Kosmic coincidence you posted this today.

 

I am currently working on an Integral Theory of Acting and the Dramatic Art (in all forms). I was particularly excited today because I have discovered the neurological evidence that supports (nay, proves) a specifically dramatic intelligence-which is to say, the core operations of acting and dramatic talent. (!Exciting!) I came to the forum kind of wanting to talk about it, but figured there would be nowhere to do so –no one would really be interested.

 

Anyway, have you read Sharon Carnicke’s Stanislavsky in Focus? I must highly recommend. She shows –FINALLY-how Stanislavsky’s spirituality was genuine spirituality and his system was directly and heavily influenced by Raja Yoga.  Too much to say right now, not much time.

 

In a couple of weeks ISC should be posting my phone conversation with Ken (from the “States and Stages” series) where we talk about Integral Acting and the Integral Actor’s studio a lot. Including how my own training was heavily spiritual (but I did not get the chance to mention on the call how it was also very heavily Yogic-based on techniques developed by an enlightened former prima ballerina). The idea for an Integral Actor’s studio was actually inspired by Genpo Roshi's Big Mind process, between Ken and Saul Williams.

 

Anyway, gotta go –hopefully much more later.

 

Peace, Tim

---

"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

Tim I listened to your conversation live and just wanted to say that I agreed with some of your approached and thinking around acting. For the last year I have been running workshop and one to one sessions on Integral Acting at the London Actors Centre. (If you are not an equity member you do not get in). I recently recorded a dialogue with Stuart around the importance of developing a clear approach to acting through an Integral perspective.

 

Let’s chat about how we can move Integral Acting forward

 

Gary

 

www.confluentliving.co.uk

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www.confluentliving.co.uk

Hey Tim!

Sorry for not replying sooner- I really should check forum more often.
I will listen to your conversation with Ken asap!

Haven't read Stanislavsky in Focus. I graduated in 2003, and my very hurridly written dissertation was on Yoga and Acting. I was fascinated by the fact that Stan acknowledged Michael Checkov has the one who would lead the way forward, and that Checkov in turn was convinced that the key lay in Yoga. However, since there was next to no literature on yoga avaliable to him in Russia, he turned to Eurythmy and Steiner.... I found some awesome resources while writing my thesis, became overwhelmed when I realised the true immensity of what I was trying to do, and ended up really just skimming the surface of the subject. It is on my old apple I-book. I will dig it up and send you a copy if you like?


Would love to talk more about this!


Melina

---

"Poetry is the spontaneous expression of the inner attitudes of the soul"

Hi Melina, Gary, and Tim,

Thanks for starting this conversation.

I'd love to see discussions like these occurring within the Integral Art Center forum, so that arts-related threads have a single home on the multiplex, and we can better keep track of who is reading, writing, or creating what. You all are more than welcome to continue this conversation there, if you'd like.

Oh, and Tim, I tried emailing you about your Integral Acting paper, but the message bounced back. Will you email me your current address?

Cheers,

---

Matt Rentschler
Managing Editor, AQAL: Journal of Integral Theory and Practice
Co-Director, Integral Art Center

Hi guys! Glad to see this thread popped back up.

 

Gary, I’ll be looking forward to that dialog. Do you want to tell us a little more about your work and about how the dialog came about?

 

Admittedly, my entire direction and focus at present is purely theoretical. In other words, I am not practicing theatre at the moment in any way. But I also believe this little "sabbatical" affords me the time to go in this theoretical direction.  My goal is simply to create the most comprehensive, differentiated and clear orienting map of the entire potential “theatrical” territory, and how we can and do participate in it, using AQAL.

 

But, Melina, you really are absolutely right – once you open up that door you realize that this subject matter really is incredibly vast and complicated. I have, however, made a great deal of headway and even, I think, have nearly all of the general contours defined and set out already. But the research! . . . . Well, it’s a little more vast and involved than I expected.

 

One of the reasons for this, which I have come to discover, is that many of the areas necessary to touch upon have not been areas of the human experience that have received much serious inquiry.  To name simply a few –and some of my current focus- there’s:

 

The human ability to engage in pretence –and this is very much related to-

The phenomenon and development of children’s pretend or ‘dramatic’ play

The nature and development of emotions

The actual nature and definition of acting or dramatic talent.

 

This last, as I mentioned above, has been my main focus for the last several months. I see it as crucial to any Integral theory, or even in a great number of ways crucial to the moving forward toward any 21^st Century understanding –or even creation-of the art form. Or, the necessity of creating a post-postmodern view.

 

I am really interested in your take on this, Gary:

 

Postmodernism –and in cahoots to some great extent with movies-has just devastated the entire field of acting with regards to any formal theory and training. This has created what in my opinion, here in America, might even be called a tremendous urgency for a more Integral approach and view. The fragmentation, the reductionism, the confusion and controversy, the massive influence of Boomeritis in the field, the pre/trans fallacy –these are everywhere here in relation to the subject of acting. Is it quite so where you are? There has been a growing consensus among critics and audiences in America –one which is very easy to agree with-that English actors are just better. The reason most often cited is, again, training. And it's not that we don't do any actor training over here, it how we do actor training that's the problem.

 

 

But my main point in expressing all of that is to explain some of the strongest factors that have shaped my view and the direction of my work.

 

Two of the priorities have been to outline an adequate psychology for the actor-even and far aside from a spiritual or yogic psychology- and to, as I mentioned above, define acting and/or dramatic talent. (That includes comedic too.)

 

Boy, there’s so much to say I don’t even know where to begin. But to share with you guys a few things . . .

 

I have used Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory to guide to discovery that above said “talent’- or namely, a dramatic/comedic intelligence. Gardner sets forth a specific criteria to define an intelligence (what we here might call a talent stream, module or line) and I believe it can be met. The clincher of his criteria-or the hardest of the “hard” evidence-is, of course, neurological. I believe I have indeed found that evidence and it happens to be an area of study which has only opened up in the last 25 years. It’s called in the field of neuropsychiatry affective prosody. In a nut shell, this is the basis-in all human beings- of both the expression and comprehension of emotion. (So, that fits, right!?) Oh, and that's not the feeling of emotion -just the expression and comprehension.

 

The issue gets complex and so I wont go into anything that far now, but one of the things that makes talent so complicated is that there is actually in fact a “second strain.” I use that term for working purposes, but that “second strain” is-as I mentioned above-the human ability to engage in pretence. This is in fact an area that has only gained serious interest and study (among developmentalists and some philosophers) in only the last 10-15 years.

 

Again, don’t want to get too complex now with all of that, but both of those are fundamentally necessary for acting or any theatrical art.

 

The first –affective prosody-is what I see as the quintessential talent of the actor. (Although it has to be broadened to something like affective/behavioral prosody. And to be quite honest, it actually goes rather far, if not all the way, to take care of the confounding “psycho-physical” nature of acting. The talent itself –if we define it properly and understand it’s nature-is in fact already psycho-physical, and cn be neurologically proven to be so.) I believe affective prosody is used by all other participants in “the theatrical art”-directors, writers, etc. But many of the other areas have a premium on the creation and organization of a pretence. Naturally actors must have heightened abilities of pretence as well, but hopefully you kind of get the point in how these two abilities both work together and branch out into different areas. (That is, if I even explained that all clearly!)

 

On one more note for now-

 

The Yoga and spiritual aspect is actually quite interesting in terms of the nature of the art form itself and one’s development in it.

 

Going back to Gardner, one of the things to look for in terms of development with talents is the presence of potential “crisis” periods.

 

I find this actually very exciting because there are actually two potential major crisis stages that actors can (and do) go through.

 

The first we see with child actors. Although it is kind of widely recognized that kids who grow up acting eventually reach a point where they are no longer “cute” anymore, I see a major interior crisis involved in this potentially difficult and career ending period as well. It all has to do with how much easier it is for children to actively and naturally engage in pretence. Especially if we notice that . . . well, all children engage in active pretence (pretend play) up to a certain age. And it simply disappears. There are natural stages of development –regardless and aside from talent-that cause active pretence to become much more difficult as we get older.

 

But the second crisis period is even more interesting. It is well known that Stanislavsky began his search for a system after he had reached a crisis. My own mentor at one point reached the same sort of a crisis. Suddenly acting just was not fun anymore, felt contrived, forced, silly, etc. Both of were only able to continue by further inquiry into, as Stanislavsky says, “the nature of acting”-which very much, in the end, means the Spiritual Nature of acting.

 

Many others have been documented to reach the same crisis stage –always after an already long and successful career acting (and as an adult)-but just never find it in themselves to act anymore. Marlon Brando is a good example.

 

So my theory of this later crisis stage is that, basically, if you do not find some way to look into the deeper spiritual nature of acting, and include and integrate that of yourself into your art – it’s over. You just are not interested anymore. Acting becomes uncomfortable and even silly. But maybe even deeper, since this has been your life and your career, what has led you thus far, this crisis is actually a existential crisis as well. That is what motivates to drive towards spirit – or if not, to depression and reclusion as in the example of Brando and others.

 

I find this very, very interesting. The gross Frontal Ego can only act for so long . . .and then you’ve got to move towards spirit in order to act anymore. Can this be said of any other art?

 

Okay, sorry to go on for so long and I hope this has at least been interesting. If you couldn’t guess, the subject kind of fascinates me and gets me all excited. Please, lets do “chat” more.

 

Peace, Tim

---

"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

wrench:

Hi Melina, Gary, and Tim,

Thanks for starting this conversation.

I'd love to see discussions like these occurring within the Integral Art Center forum, so that arts-related threads have a single home on the multiplex, and we can better keep track of who is reading, writing, or creating what. You all are more than welcome to continue this conversation there, if you'd like.

Oh, and Tim, I tried emailing you about your Integral Acting paper, but the message bounced back. Will you email me your current address?

Cheers,

Hey Matt, thanks for jumping in. I was thinking just your thoughts-about moving this conversation's location-as I posted. I wonder if Hallie might simply move it there? If not, perhaps one of us can or will just copy and paste into a new thread.

I'm not sure why that email bounced back. But at any rate I will mail you from another adress. Or, simply, it's Tim dot Melody at gmail dot com.

Peace, Tim

---

"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

Tim,

Great post (and thanks for the new email address). Some thoughts:

I'm glad to see you connecting dramatic and comedic acting as both acting. It fascinates me how people generally regarded as comedians shift into dramatic work: Bill Murray (Lost in Translation); Jamie Foxx (from In Living Color to eventually a best actor Oscar for Ray); and Jim Carrey (from Ace Ventura to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), among many others.

And does anyone else consider it a type absolutism that the Oscars award dramatic acting but eschew comedic acting? In fact, this was lampooned by Jack Black, Will Ferrell, and John C. Reilley during the Oscars this year.

Also, I'm curious what you think the differences are, if any, between "affective prosody" and the affective/emotional intelligence?

My sense is that the activity we call acting, at least as far as lines are concerned, is an amalgam or "functional grouping" of affective and pretend play intelligences, along with kinesthetic and linguistic intelligences, to some extent. What do you think?

"The gross Frontal Ego can only act for so long . . .and then you’ve got to move towards spirit in order to act anymore. Can this be said of any other art?"

Absolutely. Whether we are musicians, writers, dancers, or actors, artists of all stripes come up against their own limitations and partiality. (And, to flesh out the first part of the quote above: acting with gross, subtle, and causal bodyminds, or 3-body acting.) Eros is driving us from one end, and Agape is pulling us from the other, and I think the best artists sense this morphogenetic tilt and must ask themselves: evolution or irrelevance?

Best,

---

Matt Rentschler
Managing Editor, AQAL: Journal of Integral Theory and Practice
Co-Director, Integral Art Center

Wrench wrote: I'm glad to see you connecting dramatic and comedic acting as both acting. It fascinates me how people generally regarded as comedians shift into dramatic work: Bill Murray (Lost in Translation); Jamie Foxx (from In Living Color to eventually a best actor Oscar for Ray); and Jim Carrey (from Ace Ventura to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), among many others.

 

Yes. And there are many others, including those who go from drama to comedy like –one of my favorites-Leslie Neilson. Also, Saturday Night Live players, are absolutely actors, and provide some of the easiest and most vivid examples of what I am attempting to define here as talent.

 

But there is also the common road from stand-up comedian to TV sitcom star, which is to say, stand-up comedian to actor-Bill Cosby, Jerry Seinfeld, Andy Kaufman, Rosanne; the list goes on. With the probable exception of Kaufman in that list, this is perhaps generally a range of acting that is confined to one’s own personality-or one’s own unique “character”- but it is acting none the less. To me this seems to heavily suggest that there is a distinct, even progressive, relationship between the core operations of stand-up comedy and theatrical acting and theatre. There are potentially progressive correlations between the structure of a single joke, to a longer narrative joke, to a longer narrative funny story (e.g. Bill Cosby) to the full enacting of that story (which Cosby did often do on his shows as one example). There are also marked correlations between delivery, timing and the character of the deliverer. I really do tend to think, all things considered, that what was performed by Thespis-the man with the folkloric credit of being “the first actor”- in ancient Greece, was probably something much closer to a modern comedian in concert than to modern theatre. There are also numerous stories from theatrical autobiographies where events in childhood brought about the realization that the individual could make other people laugh and thus entertain them –long before acting or theatre became a serious interest. Further, production and sometimes cultural reception forces do tend to confine the range that many actors are given the opportunity to exhibit. It can be surprising what an otherwise “dramatic” actor (or even action hero or comedic actor) has in them that we have just never been allowed yet to see.

  

But anyway, you are indeed right. Strictly speaking, we are talking about a dramatic/comedic intelligence, where tragedy and comedy are merely opposite affective ends of the same continuum and the same core operations. There is, however, one important qualification: comedic, in this sense, does not mean a sense of humor or a humor intelligence, it just means that the operations used to create theatrical drama are the same  operations used for theatrical comedy. And for various reasons, it is also true that often actor do tend in one or the other direction as their most adept mode.

 

 

 

Wrench wrote: And does anyone else consider it a type absolutism that the Oscars award dramatic acting but eschew comedic acting? In fact, this was lampooned by Jack Black, Will Ferrell, and John C. Reilley during the Oscars this year.

  

This is unfortunate and it’s nice that this is getting more and more notice. Ideally there should be a best comedy, best drama –and then probably best actor/actress in both of those-and then maybe the grand, end-all “best picture,” like the Golden Globes. If I’m not mistaken, the Tony’s make this crucial distinction as well. Some critics have noted –and I think correctly-that the Academy tends to seek to award things that will make the Academy (and I suppose the film-making they are associated with) appear “noble” and serious drama seems to more easily fit that bill. But it is unfortunate; because as it stands now it’s like a whole ½ of the entire field is by default deemed unworthy of “serious” –and even noble-recognition. Lorne Michaels, producer of Saturday Night Live says that he does believe a show like SNL is “a force for good” and how can anybody argue that-to have all the sordid recent events of society lampooned and have the entire nation, if not world, laughing about it the next day? Yes, Integral sensitivities deem that we need comedy. And it’s rather a pompous shame to have that left out at the most noted theatrical awards ceremony. (More people pay for tickets to the comedies anyway!)

 

You’re other two questions require me a bit more time to answer than I have right now, so we’ll leave them for later.

 

Peace, Tim

---

"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

Aprosodia is the condition of loss of affective prosody in one or all of three ways -comprehension, production and repetition. Affective prosody is basiclly this:

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Etc. The word is identical every time, but the affect, thought and meaning conveyed is entirely different. This is actually why we have emoticons at all. Aprosodia is the condition of life without emoticons. Thus all you get is:

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Etc.

 -and it can devastate a person's social reality and interactions, even with close family.

It is dominantly lateralized in the brains Right Hemisphere. Various lesions in this area can cause aprosodia and it has been documented in autism, schizophrenias, Alzheimer’s, fetal alcohol syndrome, severe alcohol abuse, post stroke and a number of other conditions.

However, I spoke to the leading researcher in this area today, and it turns out that he has had at least two patients with sever Right Brain damage but no aprosodia. They were both actors/voice teachers. He also met a famous actress after Right Brain bleed with no loss of prosody.

What this means is that an actor develops (or has in potential from birth) an interhemispheric shift in affective prosody-it becomes a propositional language located in the Left Hemisphere. Just like music which has been documented in this way as well.

Just thought I would share that, but the full report will be in my forthcoming essay.

Peace, Tim

 

---

"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

Been away for a while but an a last free to follow up Integral Acting, I am trying to put togther a Integral informed performance. I have a chance to place an anouncement in the next London Actors Centre newsletter but need to create an overview. Any help in creating the overview would be great. Below is the overview from the presention I gave to the Actor Centre explaining how IA might work.

As I run the London ILP group I am interested in IA as a practice that helps in the widening of perspective for both performer and audience

Just to give you all a sense of the approach I used at the Actor
Centre. Before I could run the workshop I needed to present to the
Head of Teaching the theory and approach.
So I explained AQAL as a background, then how the praxis could be
linked to acting.
Artaud said that drama must contain the Metaphysical, the Cultural,
and the Alchemical. This triad can be seen as I-WE-IT
� The Metaphysical -being that space in which change takes
place through an interior exploration
� The Cultural � being the space in which a relationship is
developed
� The Alchemical � the external process
As an actor prepares for performance each space is used, to help
orientate the actor. This ordination takes place through perspective
So
We begin with the actor in first person (I)
The interior aspect of the actor � sub personalities (we)
The role � (IT)
Stage One
First we work with the actor (I) freeing them from shadow elements
that inhibit performance leading to a relationship with their sub
personalities (WE), leading to the development of the role (IT).
Stage Two
The actor now in contact as I with their sub personalities now moves
into relationship with the role (WE), leading to the development of
the text-rehearsal (IT)
Stage Three
As the actor moves into role (I) the text -rehearsal (WE) becomes the
relationship, with the performance being the process (IT)
Stage Four
The actor/role/text becomes the (I) the (WE) is now the performance
and the audience as (IT).
Stage Five
The Performance becomes the (I) the audience becomes the (WE) and the
theatre space becomes the (IT).
The original workshop looked at the stage one- Actor-Sub
personalities- Role.
This framework allows the actor to move through the I WE and IT at
each stage of the development of the performance, as it does not hold
to anyone therapeutic methodology it allows for an Integral Acting
methodological pluralism.
This is one approach we could use and I offer it as a starting point
for an Integral Performance.

---

www.confluentliving.co.uk

Tim/Wrench:

This is great stuff!

I have been trying to explain to my 12 year old son how the Academy goes about selecting the best of anything. He is at the stage where he wants to believe that the "Best Picture" was really the best picture.

I like your comment Tim about how the Academy tries to select that which will make the Academy look the most noble and serious. My slant on the topic is this: the Academy sees itself as the pantheon of the gods in the world. I mean, in a very real sense, no one is closer to being a god in modern society than a serious actor or actress in a massively popular picture. And the Academy sees itself as the shapers of the pantheon. So, each year that ask themselves: what mood or feature of art or culture or political position do we feel needs a boost? They then go about looking for a representative film or performance of high quality that fits the direction or element that they want to see augmented.

Daniel Day Lewis in "There Will Be Blood" promotes the notion that the life of a Texas oilman is empty and evil (political jab at Bush/Cheney)

Marion Cottilard in "La Vie En Rose" tells the French we still love them and admire them despite the trashing they get from our "RED" leadership.

"No Country For Old Men" reinforces the theme of the Western as the core of American filmmaking and simultaneously tells the youth of American and the world that "look, the Coen brothers are young and are getting rewarded for making traditional films, so you too might considering joining (as receipts at the box office are falling) and rejuvenating the traditional film industry.

Honestly, there is no objective way you can say that any of the above were "better" than their co-nominees.

Regarding comedy, I am trying to envision how the Academy would select a Best Comedy. One of the problems I think we would run into quickly is that each genre of comedy is quite distinct. Have you read Arthur Koestler's essay on comedy (I believe it is his book, Janus: A Summing Up)?

He makes the point that comedy runs the gamut from puerile comedy that finds poop jokes funny to highly sophisticated comedy that depends on subtle twists of meaning. People who find scatological humor hillarious will often not "get" a joke like "What is the definition of a sadist? Someone who is really nice to a masochist."

So, it may be the case that the Academy knows that any attempt to identify the best comedy of the year will invariably leave 90% of the population scratching its head in disagreement. I mean, the best comedy is that which has me pissing my pants and holding my guts, right? Whereas with drama, there is alway the insinuation that the experts in the pantheon know or see something that I am not prepared to appreciate, so I and accept this as legitimate. 

I want to re-read the rest of what you guys have written. Thanks for some great posts.