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Actor as Refusenik: Semiotics, Theatre Anthropology, and the Work of the Body

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Nigel Stewart
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Abstract

‘Theatre’, Eugenio Barba has said, ‘is a possibility of shaping revolt’. Barba touched upon this belief in NTQ16 (1988), and he professed it again with considerable passion at the conclusion of the seventh public session of the International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA) in April 1992. Directed by Barba and hosted by the Centre for Performance Research (CPR), the ‘Brecon ISTA’ was held in two parts – Working on Performances East and West, a practical exploration at Christ College, Brecon, from 4 to 10 April, being followed by a conference on 10 and 11 April at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, on Fictive Bodies, Dilated Minds, Hidden Dances. In the following exploration of the particular possibilities which theatre anthropology creates for revolt, Nigel Stewart, Lecturer in Theatre Studies at Lancaster University, considers Barba's direction of work in progress at the Brecon ISTA in terms of Derrida's and Kristeva's theories of the sign. Integral to this is an analysis of the relation between bios and logos – the ‘pre-expressive’ work of the body and the meanings which that work can produce – which is relevant to body-based performance theory and practice in general.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 9 , Issue 36 , November 1993 , pp. 379 - 386
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

Notes and References

1. Barba, Eugenio and Savarese, Nicola, A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology: the Secret Art of the Performer, ed. Gough, Richard, trans. Fowler, Richard (London and New York: Routledge; Centre for Performance Research, 1991), p. 68 ff, 241Google Scholar. This volume with more than 600 illustrations presents the results of ISTA's research between 1980 and 1990.

2. Ibid., p. 6–7.

3. Barba, , ‘The Way of Refusal: the Theatre's Body-in-Life’, New Theatre Quarterly, IV, No. 16 (1988), p. 294.Google Scholar

4. Elsass, Peter, Pradier, Jean-Marie, and Savarese, Nicola, ‘Fifth Public Session of ISTA: Salento, Italy’, Unpublished Report (Holstebro, Denmark: Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium, 1987), p. 6.Google Scholar

5. Leach, Edmund, Culture and Communication: the Logic by which Symbols are Connected (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 17–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. See Eco, Umberto, ‘Social Life as a Sign System’, in Robey, David, ed., Structuralism: an Introduction (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), p. 57.Google Scholar

7. Barba and Savarese, op. cit., p. 5.

8. See Barba, Eugenio, Beyond the Floating Islands (New York: PAJ Publications, 1986), p. 115–20, 153Google Scholar; Christoffersen, Erik Exe, ‘The Presence Radiated by the Actor-Dancer’, Nordic Theatre Studies, II, No. 3 (Munksgaard, 1989), p. 49–52.Google Scholar

9. Barker, Clive, Hoff, Frank, Pradier, Jean-Marie, Ruffini, Franco, and Yamaguchi, Masao, ‘Sixth ISTA Public Session, the University of Eurasian Theatre: Bologna, Italy’, Unpublished Report (Holstebro, Denmark: Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium, 1990), p. 2Google Scholar.

10. Ibid., p. 2.

11. See Elsass, et al., ‘Fifth Public Session of ISTA’, p. 6; also Pavis, Patrice, ‘Dancing with Faust: a Semiotician's Reflections on Barba's Intercultural Miseen-Scène’, The Drama Review, XXXIII, No. 3 (Fall 1989), p. 38Google Scholar, reprinted (without photographs) in Patrice Pavis, Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 160–83.

12. See Barker, et al., ‘Sixth ISTA Public Session’, p. 4.

13. The performers at Brecon included seven actors and two musicians from Odin Teatret, Odissi performer Sanjukta Panigrahi and her four musicians, Onnagata performer Kanichi Hanayagi with translator and Kabuki specialist Mark Oshima, and four performers from the Balinese Dharma Shanti Company.

14. CPR, Letter, 26 February, 1992.

15. Patrice Pavis' definition offered during work on 10 April 1992.

16. See Barba and Savarese, The Secret Art of the Performer, p. 191 ff.

17. Ibid., p. 97.

18. See Freud, Sigmund, ‘On Dreams’, The Essentials of Psychoanalysis, ed. Freud, Anna (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), p. 81–125Google Scholar, esp. p. 94–104.

19. Derrida, Jacques, Writing and Difference, trans. Bass, Alan (London: Routledge, 1978), p. 201Google Scholar.

20. Ibid., p. 224.

21. Harland, Richard, Superstructuralism: the Philosophy of Structuralism and Post-structuralism (London: Methuen, 1987), p. 14Google Scholar.

22. Ibid., p. 153.

23. Artaud, Antonin, ‘The Theatre and Its Double’, Collected Works, Vol. IV, trans. Corti, Victor (London: Calder and Boyars, 1974), p. 25–7Google Scholar, 55.

24. See Derrida, Writing and Difference, p. 218.

25. Ibid., p. 211.

26. See Barba, Beyond the Floating Islands, p. 118.

27. Harland, Superstructuralism, p. 132.

28. Ibid., p. 126; and compare Belsey, Catherine, Critical Practice (London: Methuen, 1980), p. 7–14Google Scholar.

29. Derrida, Writing and Difference, p. 236.

30. Ibid., p. 211.

31. Kristeva, Julia, Desire in Language: a Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, ed. Roudiez, Leon S. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980), p. 36Google Scholar(my emphasis).

32. A term used frequently by Barba, . See Pound's principle of the ‘vortex’ in Jones, Peter, ed., Imagist Poetry (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), p. 39Google Scholar.

33. Barba and Savarese, The Secret Art of the Performer, p. 58–61.

34. See Alan Bass, in Derrida, Writing and Difference, p. xvi; Harland, Superstructuralism, p. 138.

35. Elsass, et al., ‘Fifth Public Session of ISTA’, p. 4.

36. Ibid., p. 4.

37. Eugenio Barba, ‘Anthropological Theatre’, Unpublished Paper (Bahia Blanca, Argentina: International Encounter on Anthropological Theatre, 1987), p. 1.

38. Barba, ‘The Way of Refusal’, passim, esp. p. 299.

39. Harland, Superstructuralism, p. 146.

40. Kristeva, Julia, ‘The System and the Speaking Subject’, in Sebeok, Thomas, ed., The Tell-Tale Sign (Lisse, Netherlands: Peter de Ridder Press, 1975), p. 47Google Scholar.

41. Kristeva, Julia, ‘The Semiotic Activity’, Screen, XIV, No. 1–2 (Spring-Summer 1973), p. 35Google Scholar.

42. Franco Ruffini, in Barba and Savarese, The Secret Art of the Performer, p. 241.

43. Kristeva, ‘The Semiotic Activity’, p. 36.

44. See Kristeva, ‘The System and the Speaking Subject’, p. 48, 51, 54.

45. Ibid., p. 52; and compare Harland, Superstructuralism, p. 148; Barba, Beyond the Floating Islands, p. 267.

46. Harland, Superstructuralism, p. 168.

47. Kristeva, Desire in Language, p. 65.

48. Kristeva, ‘The System and the Speaking Subject’, p. 48.

49. See Barba, Beyond the Floating Islands, p. 199 ff.

50. See Barba, ‘The Way of Refusal’, p. 299.

51. Artaud, ‘The Theatre and Its Double’, p. 7, 77.

52. See Pavis, ‘Dancing with Faust’, p. 49–54.

53. Derrida, Writing and Difference, p. 210; and compare Kristeva, ‘The System and the Speaking Subject’, p. 53.