Integrative Performance : Practice and Theory for the Interdisciplinary Performer

Integrative Performance serves a crucial need of 21st-century performers by providing a transdisciplinary approach to training. Its radical new take on performance practice is designed for a climate that increasingly requires fully rounded artists. The book critiques and interrogates key current practices and offers a proven alternative to the idea that rigorous and effective training must separate the disciplines into discrete categories of acting, singing, and dance. Experience Bryon's Integrative Performance Practice is a way of working that will profoundly shift how performers engage with their training, conditioning and performance disciplines. It synthesizes the various elements of performance work in order to empower the performer as they practice across disciplines within any genre, style or aesthetic. Theory and practice are balanced throughout, using: Regular box-outs, introducing the work's theoretical underpinnings through quotes, case studies and critical interjections. A full program of exercises ranging from training of specific muscle groups, through working with text, to more subtle structures for integrative awareness and presence. This book is the result of over twenty years of practice and research working with interdisciplinary artists across the world to produce a training that fully prepares performers for the demands of contemporary performance and all its somatic, emotive and vocal possibilities. Integrative Performance serves a crucial need of 21st-century performers by providing a transdisciplinary approach to training. Its radical new take on performance practice is designed for a climate that increasingly requires fully rounded artists. The book critiques and interrogates key current practices and offers a proven alternative to the idea that rigorous and effective training must separate the disciplines into discrete categories of acting, singing, and dance. Experience Bryon's Integrative Performance Practice is a way of working that will profoundly shift how performers engage with their training, conditioning and performance disciplines. It synthesizes the various elements of performance work in order to empower the performer as they practice across disciplines within any genre, style or aesthetic. Theory and practice are balanced throughout, using: Regular box-outs, introducing the work's theoretical underpinnings through quotes, case studies and critical interjections. A full program of exercises ranging from training of specific muscle groups, through working with text, to more subtle structures for integrative awareness and presence. This book is the result of over twenty years of practice and research working with interdisciplinary artists across the world to produce a training that fully prepares performers for the demands of contemporary performance and all its somatic, emotive and vocal possibilities Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 List of exercises 10 Acknowledgements 11 Introduction 12 How to use this book 16 Part I Performers–Performing–Performance 18 1 Who is an Integrative Performer? 20 The alchemy of the performer 22 The performer’s brain 26 The performer’s mind/body 28 The performing self 31 2 What is Integrative Performance? 46 Performance, an expanding concept 47 Tracing the evolution of performance 48 3 Towards Integrative Performing 64 Shifts in thinking 66 Rethinking the part, the bit, and the local 67 Rethinking the entire, the whole, and the global 68 Active aesthetic 71 Part II Working in the Field of Performing 74 4 Centre, Presence, and the Initiation of Task 76 Doing a task 76 Meeting in the middle 98 Conscious practice 101 Working with the Conscious Practice Journal 102 Part III Integrative Performance Practice 106 5 Working from the Integrative Centre 108 Centre, which centre? 109 The power of the perineum 111 Exploring the metaphor of the chakra 113 Integrative breathing 117 Suspension 120 The roll 124 Refining the roll — mirror tensions 128 Sounding while rolling 132 Iliopsoas — a physical key to integration 134 Spine and psoas, vertical access 136 Dynamic alignment 142 Moving from floor to standing with dynamic psoas alignment 144 Rolling to standing with and without voicing 146 The rings 153 Working in motion through dynamic alignment 154 Working with legs and feet, from sitting to standing, leaping and turning'] 154 Shoulder, neck, arms, and hands 162 Preparing to take weight in hands and arms 167 Moving forward with dynamic alignment into voicing 176 6 Voicing as a Breath Dance 177 Face and head as mirror of the body 178 The face and three-part breath and tongue 179 Working with the exhale or while voicing 181 Sounding off the throat 186 Exploring range 188 Onset 189 Putting it together: crafting a physio-vocal practice 190 7 Acting is Doing 192 Revolting against — defining doing 194 The actor doing 196 Doing actions 197 Being/doing character 199 Part IV Integrative Performance Analysis 202 8 Working in the Field of Performing Through Text 204 Text in integrative performance analysis 204 Actions in integrative performance analysis 205 Action against obstacles 206 Events and happenings in integrative performance analysis 207 Activating the event 210 Putting it together 211 Event in IPA: A shifting template holding multiple disciplines within myriad genres 223 9 Conclusion 225 Bibliography 227 Index 231