The Emotional Body: A Workshop for professional Actors, Dancers, Choreographers, Directors, and Therapists of the Bodymind.

Instructor: Michele Minnick

Monday- Friday Mornings
January 6-10, 2003
9:00 -12:00
Centro Laban
Rua Alice 75 * Laranjeiras * Rio de Janeiro * CEP22241-020 Brasil
for information contact Regina Miranda at:
Tel: 5521-558-8513 Fax: 5521-558-2657 E-mail: reginamiranda@uol.com.br

"We can no longer think of emotions as having less validity than physical, material substance, but instead must see them as cellular signals that are involved in the process of translating information into physical reality,
literally transforming mind into matter. Emotions are the nexus between matter and mind, going back and forth between the two and influencing both"
Candace Pert, Neuroscientist, and author of Molecules of Emotion

For the past thirty years or so, "emotion" has been rising up more and more as the center of debates in various fields across the globe. Recently it has appeared as the key term in a cultural studies conference in Turkey, in the contemporary dance scene in Europe, and in a form of U.S.-based actor training (Alba Emoting) which emerged out of neurobiological research begun in Chile. All of these practices and conversations are invested in questions of the production, location and "authenticity" of emotion. Meanwhile, the everyday emotional life of people around the world is increasingly interconnected, as we witness acts and performances of so-called "terror" and so-called "anti-terror" and "anti-anti-terror" by militant groups and individuals, the government, police and military forces that suppress them, and people fighting individually and uniting with others in protest against the forces of military and police suppression. It seems to me that emotion itself has become a powerful weapon on all sides, as inflammatory words are used to incite grief, rage, fear, and pride in the minds and bodies of millions of people, from Baghdad to Rio to Bali to New York City (the list can go on and on).

What alternatives are there? How can we become conscious of and use our relationship to the emotions of ourselves and others in ways that promote life and healing rather than more destruction? For me this question is not separate from the question of the role of emotion in theatrical performance practice, it merely makes both questions, and the need to understand the relationship between them, all the more urgent. As choreographer Mary Overlie once said, whether we use emotion consciously or not in making dance, it is the first thing we see when we watch dance performances, the emotional state of the performer is what affects us first, and perhaps most strongly, in any performance situation, even if only on an unconscious level. For the past seven years, my personal and
performance practice has been deeply invested in the investigation of emotion as a mode of being (on and off the stage), a frame of analysis, and a tool both for the training of performers and the creation of performance.

I believe that research on emotion needs to be conducted not only in the context of the scientific laboratory, but also in a phenomenological fashion, by those who are most experienced and comfortable with exploring
and developing the relationship between mind, body, and being in the world -- that is, actors, dancers and practitioners of the healing arts, from bodyworkers, to psychoanalysts to drama and dance therapists.

Drawing on my longtime development of the Rasaboxes (see below), a training technique designed by Richard Schechner to help performers become, in Artaud' s words, "athletes of the emotions," on the Body, Effort, Shape, Space and Relationship aspects of Laban Movement Analysis, and on some of the principles and practices of Body Mind Centering, this workshop will explore some questions, not so much to "fix" answers, but to generate movement, and more questions.

Michele Minnick is a certified Laban Movement Analyst, and a performer, director/ choreographer and teacher. She has worked with director and performance theorist Richard Schechner since 1994, acting in and directing productions with Schechner' s company, East Coast Artists. Since 1999 she has been leading performance workshops in the Rasaboxes and other techniques developed by Schechner at New York University, La Mama Experimental Theater Company in New York City, and at colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad. Her primary work with emotion has been on and through the Rasaboxes, a psychophysical technique initially conceived by Schechner.

Based on classical Indian performance theory and practice as outlined in the Natyasastra and practiced in Odissi, Bharatnattyam and other classical Indian dance forms, and on contemporary studies on the physiology of emotion, the Rasaboxes are designed to help performers achieve Artaud' s demand, that the actor be an "athlete of the emotions." This is achieved first of all by spatializing the nine emotional states used in classical Indian dance practice, and then through individual and group exercises, which develop an "emotional body" through verbal and visual association, sound and movement improvisations, and text and scenework.

Currently, Michele is a PhD candidate in the department of performance studies at New York University, where she also teaches theatre and performance history.