Effects of actor training on personality

Abstract

The terminology of the theatre-maker and choreographer Rudolph Laban is applied as a point of departure for the development of new approaches to the study of personality - broadly defined as relatively stable patterns of behaviour - in the context of interdisciplinary performance research. The work is conducted under the aegis of the xHCA programme at the University of Malta, in which actor training is also investigated from the perspectives of the life sciences and the social sciences. It is argued that aspects of Laban Movement Analysis provide a meeting point for communication between artist and scientist. The potential for the theatre pedagogue is illustrated by demonstrating the congruence of many of Laban's ideas with issues related to contemporary training in improvisation, and by applying variants of the terminology as a tool for the organization of observational records of sessions of creative movement by actors and apprentice actors. The potential utility to interdisciplinary researchers is shown by deriving quantitative correlates of the terminology through integration with computer-based recording and analysis (motion capture) and applying the results in two pilot studies of differences in movement style between actors and non-actors on a series of improvisational tasks. The thesis concludes by proposing extensions to this approach including training in a master class based on feedback from computer models, as well as suggestions for future research projects encompassing learning and memory, personality research, and creativity studies.