Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Series | Book | Chapter

194229

Significant practices and principles

play, improvisation, mask work, and language

Maiya Murphy

pp. 155-182

Abstract

Murphy examines Lecoq's notions of play and improvisation through enaction to show how they are ideal examples of the continuity between lower-level and higher-level cognition. This chapter includes a discussion on Lecoq's neutral, larval, and expressive masks as tools for the actor-creator to learn how to navigate the many dimensions available to the performer. Murphy concludes with a discussion on how both Lecoq and an enactive perspective envision language as a capacity that arises from the body's engagement with movement. In this way Lecoq's insistence on starting from movement is revealed not as a bias against words or text-based theatre, but rather as a commitment to using a continuity of life and mind to equip the actor-creator with flexible capacities for theatrical expression.

Publication details

Published in:

Murphy Maiya (2019) Enacting Lecoq: movement in theatre, cognition, and life. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pages: 155-182

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-05615-5_5

Full citation:

Murphy Maiya (2019) Significant practices and principles: play, improvisation, mask work, and language, In: Enacting Lecoq, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 155–182.