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.
This film presents works by Umberto Boccioni, Auguste Rodin, Edgar Degas, Antoine Bourdelle, Henri Matisse, Giorgio Vasari, El Greco, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee commented by Eugenio Barba: “Where there is movement there is transformation. Rodin said that sculpture does not need to be original, it needs life: movement and action.
Movement is not simply a transition from one attitude to another, but the transition from one tension to another, the modification of an object or body in space. Movement is a way of expressing the inner life. Rodin concluded: sculpture is the art of animating marble.
Sculpture is a science that involves knowledge of anatomy and an interpretation of movements. We can apply Rodin’s definition to theatre. Theatre is an art in which particular physical tensions of the actor and the dancer animate the movements and affect the spectator’s kinesthetic sense, nervous system and imagination.
From the point of view of Theatre Anthropology, theatre is a science that involves knowledge of the principles of extra-daily anatomy. It is the dream of every artist: to inject movement and an effect of life into his or her work. Paul Klee said that a painting does not represent the visible but makes the invisible visible: the energy of life.”