Tekhne sessions : investigating dynamic aliveness in the actor's work

Abstract

This essay documents a practice-based investigation of the space between training and performance processes. The interplay between structure and improvisation within a reiterative cycle of exercises and tasks provided the base for an exploration of a central aspect in the actor’s work underlined by the term ‘dynamic aliveness’. This ongoing investigation was initiated in 2003 under the name of Tekhn e Sessions. Tekhn e’s investigation of dynamic aliveness emerged from three different yet related contexts: the technical training of Jerzy Grotowski, the performance vision of Ingemar Lindh, and the aesthetic of the sublime of Jean-Franc¸ois Lyotard. An overview of the context and of the informing technical principles that led to the design of the Tekhn e structure paves the way for a description of its informing principles, format, and applications. The agency of structure, the dynamics of improvisation, and the presence of observers, are identified as conditions of possibility for dynamic aliveness.