Aesthetic pacing : taking a cue from Eugenio Barba and Odin Teatret

Abstract

In Performer Training for Actors and Athletes (2023), I propose via athletae, way of the athlete, as a modality of performing that is not based on a specific technique or method but on the qualitative intensity of psychophysical commitment. That is, on the nature of how performers inhabit their scenic roles in a way that combines a modus operandi with a modus vivendi. More specifically, this via athletae engagement is manifested in the dynamics of play as autotelic activity, i.e. in and of itself, for its own sake, collaborative competitiveness in its etymological sense of 'flying with' and as it overlaps with Georges Hebert's auto-emulation as a kind of self-competition to improve oneself, and pacing as an organizational and managing framework that occurs during performance. In my book, the concept of via athletae is presented within a historical contextualization prompted by Antonin Artaud's notion of an 'affective athleticism' for actors and Franco Ruffini's analysis of theatre and boxing, specifically what he calls azione in vita to mark the truth of scenic action: «In order for staged action to be true, i.e. fiction without lying, it must be azione in vita ('action in life'), i.e. real, and leaving aside any instance of realism. I argue that this corporeal truth to the material situating reality in aesthetic, athletic, and daily practices is manifested in the affordances that arise in the interactive specificities between bodies and world, which I term the «bodyworld» of performers. [excerpt]