Abstract
Embracing difference in theatre arts teaching and training requires pedagogical as well as philosophical adjustments in classrooms and rehearsal rooms. We propose that the unique cultural context of the individual actor is a rich hinterland for discovery and source of power for the student, and outline our intracultural training practice as a starting point for teachers and trainers seeking to engage with cultural and linguistic diversity. The argument of this chapter is divided into three sections. In the first, we consider the insidious impact of “neutrality” (and its synonyms) on actor training. Theatre arts training too often enables the erasure of difference through predicating teaching and learning on an imagined sameness across our student body. We argue that teachers and trainers must instead acknowledge that this sameness is determined by the hegemonic cultural power, and can therefore be wielded as an exclusionary device against students of diverse identities and diasporic heritages. The second section introduces an intracultural training practice: it first summarizes the ideas that have informed the development of our practice, and then sets out its main principles. In the final section of the chapter, we provide some practical suggestions of exercises and activities to begin implementing intracultural practice in class and rehearsal rooms. Across the chapter, our focus is on how our practice can be implemented by others, with specific reference to actor training.
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Notes
- 1.
We base this assessment on our on-the-ground experience at conservatoire actor training schools in Australia and the United Kingdom; also, it is broadly supported by the findings of the Conference of Drama Schools CDS Outreach Report 2010 and the research commissioned by Arts Council England and published in Appignanesi (2010).
- 2.
The quotations through this chapter are drawn from participants in a research project conducted through the University of East London by Kristine Landon-Smith, entitled “Towards an Intracultural Actor Training: Utilising the Cultural Context of the Performer”. The full transcripts of interviews and surveys conducted as part of this study are available as appendices to the unpublished thesis, which is available in the UEL Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/10552/5536. This quotation comes from an interview with an actor, March 3, 2013.
- 3.
Interview with an actor, February 3, 2013.
- 4.
Interview with an actor, February 3, 2013.
- 5.
Survey response from Intracultural Masterclass series, March 2014.
- 6.
Interview with an actor, February 3, 2013.
- 7.
Interview with an acting student, March 4, 2014.
- 8.
Our findings and contentions here are supported by the Conference of Drama Schools 2010 Outreach Report.
- 9.
Interview with an acting student, March 4, 2014.
- 10.
Complicité is the term used by Philippe Gaulier to refer to the rapport “between actors not characters and like the rapport that two close friends exhibit when they are together” (cited in Rea 1991).
- 11.
Survey response from Intracultural Masterclass series, March 2014.
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Hay, C., Landon-Smith, K. (2018). The Intracultural Actor: Embracing Difference in Theatre Arts Teaching. In: Fliotsos, A., Medford, G. (eds) New Directions in Teaching Theatre Arts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89767-7_10
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