This film is part of the Project of Knowledge Sharing “Learning to see – Ten lessons in Theatre Anthropology” by Eugenio Barba, Claudio Coloberti and Julia Varley. Theatre Anthropology is the study of the human being in a situation of organised representation. In the film Eugenio Barba indicates and comments the shared technical principles aiming at building the performer’s presence in different acting and dancing traditions.
In the beginning of the film, we see a grandfather, Manzo Nomura, a famous Japanese kyogen actor, teaching his three-year-old grandson Kosuke. We observe how much energy the teacher uses to convey a role to a young pupil. Then an extract of Ludmilla Pavlovna Sakharova teaching classical ballet in 1983, in the Soviet Union reveals the rigour and dedication of the teacher and highlights the pupil’s stoicism and perseverance.
It is impossible not to react to the deep emotional bond that emerges from the process of transfusion of the old teacher’s energy into the young student’s body. Other examples are given by Ryszard Cieslak of the Teatr Laboratorium, Julia Varley of Odin Teatret, and Sanjukta Panigrahi of the Odissi classical Indian dance form.