Arts & Performance

Forest life illustration from Bijutsu Sekai (1893-1896) by Watanabe Seitei, a prominent Kacho-ga artist.” (credit below)

Embodied Theater Ecology

Your body has a story to tell. It is carrying life, a pregnancy of sorts. No matter who you are, whether young or old, aware or not, each of us has a story longing to come into its own, yearning to voice itself and hear itself told. Such stories wander like orphans within us, lost to human memory, craving recognition. I have had such a story or several. Today as a Juilliard-trained actor and somatically inclined psychologist, I am inspired by the prospect of midwifing unborn stories through a process I created and call Embodied Theater Ecology (ETE).

In what ways might an understanding between artist and audience enhance our feeling of belonging, ecstasy, and universal participation? How does theater allow the audience to see more clearly, through their witnessing of the actor seeing? In what ways is our craft a drama of unfolding sight?
What might happen if nature became a vital center of embodied performance? What might be awakened in theatrical and psychological practice when humanity is, first and foremost, allowed its wildness?
What might be aroused when we invite voices of unspoken experience to arrive and be heard? How might we be changed by seeing and hearing what lies still beyond awareness and knowing, those realms of human experience and story of which we are still unconscious?
What might reveal itself if we listened to the human body’s own images and language, its own gestures and symbols, its own preverbal voices? How might what is beyond our present awareness and understanding be transmuted, intuitively, body to body?

In what ways might an understanding between artist and audience enhance our feeling of belonging, ecstasy, and universal participation? How does theater allow the audience to see more clearly, through their witnessing of the actor seeing? In what ways is our craft a drama of unfolding sight?
What might happen if nature became a vital center of embodied performance? What might be awakened in theatrical and psychological practice when humanity is, first and foremost, allowed its wildness?
What might be aroused when we invite voices of unspoken experience to arrive and be heard? How might we be changed by seeing and hearing what lies still beyond awareness and knowing, those realms of human experience and story of which we are still unconscious?
What might reveal itself if we listened to the human body’s own images and language, its own gestures and symbols, its own preverbal voices? How might what is beyond our present awareness and understanding be transmuted, intuitively, body to body?