THEATRE PROBIOLOGY (Actors' workshop)
Following his experience as an actor, director and author since founding the experimental theatre studio " Probiology Theatre " in St. Petersburg in 1993, (which became the international theatre company TEATR NOVOGO FRONTA ) A. I. Janak, artistic director of the ensemble, writes about the actors' workshop:
"Who is an actor? Who's that man, talking and moving in a space, being observed by somebody else? What kind of a ritual is the theatre performance? And why does an actor and an observer meet?
Motivated by these and many more questions, the theatre project becomes a journey through the Universe. The director / workshop leader and actor open a true way of creation, life searching for the utmost ground of the real self. This path leads to an independent work, opening a real strategy of a theatre actors' training. The answer does not give a view of a theatre work aesthetics, but has a direct influence on the quality of the work: how makes what. A strategy aware of any replay opens an experience of the individual instinct and knowledge, respecting his own work tempo, rhythm and input, following each to his own natural maturity and physical potential.
The theatre is an act leaving in the moment of its appearance. Then, it is a concentration on the meeting - right now, right here. It is the awareness of the reason to meet.
Step by step, TNF opens each chapter of the theatre actors' work, by giving deep practice and powerful potential training to the actor to develop energy mobilisation and maximum concentration. The aim is to prepare the actor's body and psyche to understand the basic strategy of the stone and leaf.
First, it is the change inside, second it is the connection to the outer powers: being for itself, everything is a part of some other thing; the way upward is the same as downwards. It is a concentration on the three basic powers affecting every human being: Gravity, Tschi, and Moon influences.
An exercise example:
The first dance of the stone (tension meditation)
Starting posture: lie down so that you touch the ground only with the hands from elbow to the palms and on the tips of the toes. Stay so and do not move. After some time, which is individual for every one of us (mostly 40 - 60 seconds), the body starts to move itself, following the tension in the back and belly muscles. The aim is to stay so as long as possible and to observe the impulses inside your own body, trying to find out the sources of the movement.
Working with an actor's body, the basic is not to let the intellect in with any comment; it is an independent observation of the body's movement. Inside the very first line drawn on a paper all the following work appears. Then, the true creation and creative comes, the practice meets the final artefact. The actor is a drummer without a drum. The beats of the heart is the beat of the drum. It is the actor, who guides through the rite, and it is up to the actor how far we get."
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