Theatre/Ecology/Cognition
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TEEMU PAAVOLAINEN Theatre/Ecology/Cognition Theorizing Performer–Object Interaction in Grotowski, Kantor, and Meyerhold ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented, with the permission of the board of the School of Communication, Media and Theatre of the University of Tampere, for public discussion in the Demo Theatre of the Centre for Practise as Research in Theatre, Hämeenpuisto 28 D, Tampere, on June 11th, 2011, at 12 o’clock. UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE ACADEMIC DISSERTATION University of Tampere School of Communication, Media and Theatre Finland Distribution Tel. +358 40 190 9800 Bookshop TAJU Fax +358 3 3551 7685 P.O. Box 617 [email protected] 33014 University of Tampere www.uta.fi/taju Finland http://granum.uta.fi Cover design by Mikko Reinikka Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 1619 Acta Electronica Universitatis Tamperensis 1080 ISBN 978-951-44-8464-3 (print) ISBN 978-951-44-8465-0 (pdf) ISSN-L 1455-1616 ISSN 1456-954X ISSN 1455-1616 http://acta.uta.fi Tampereen Yliopistopaino Oy – Juvenes Print Tampere 2011 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 5 Tiivistelmä – Finnish Abstract 7 Conventions (for Text and Notes) 8 INTRODUCTION 9 ▪ Performance and Cognition: The Necessary Exposition 12 Cognitive Semantics: Three Basic Concepts 14 Expanding the Field: The Ecological Turn 18 ▪ Outline of Chapters and Methodologies 19 1 AGENTS AND OBJECTS: A PRIMER TO CONCEPTS AND APPROACHES 22 ▪ Philosophical Underpinnings: The Great Chain and the Anti-Cognitive Prejudice 25 ▪ Perceiving Actors and Objects: Three Levels of Framing the Distinction 32 The Domain Level: Image Schemas and Cognitive Models 32 The Basic Level: Prototypes and Contextual Categories 38 The Ecological Level: Action, Perception, and Affordances 44 ▪ Crossing Boundaries: Metaphorical Mapping and Conceptual Blending 52 ▪ Out of Our Heads: An Ecological Approach to Performance and Cognition 58 2 THE MEYERHOLD CASE: SCAFFOLDING ACTION AND INTERPRETATION 68 The Construction: From Aesthetics to Engagement (or, “Affordances Appropriate to the Theatre”) 74 ▪ Enacting Biomechanics: Reflexology, Taylorism, and the Embodiment of Skill 80 Metaphors to Act By: Aspects of a Cultural Ecology 80 Acting (in) CYCLES: On Reflexology, Situated Action, and the Eventness of Stag/ing 85 All Work and No Play? From Cognitive “Taylorism” to Distributed Cognition 90 ▪ Montage of Attractions – or, Affordances for Interpretation? 96 Invariance over Affordances: An Ecological Perspective on Image Schemas 99 Politics or Psychology? Interpretation and Performance Ecology 105 3 THE POLISH CASE: POOR THEATRE/S AND CULTURAL ECOLOGY 110 ▪ Spheres of Captivity and Freedom 114 Prison 116 Shelter 119 Suspicion 122 ▪ Other Notable Structures and Their Dynamics 125 CENTER–PERIPHERY 125 CYCLES 128 VERTICALITY 130 SOURCE–PATH–GOAL 134 ▪ Towards (defining two varieties of) a Poor Theatre 138 4 GROTOWSKI AND THE “OBJECTIVITY” OF PERFORMANCE 141 ▪ Poor Theatre: Some Plot Points of Performer–Object Interaction 152 ▪ Work that Makes One Free: Theatrical Ecologies for the Enaction of Emptiness 158 ▪ Exclusion and Implication: Spectators Within the “New Tower of Babel” 164 ▪ “Outer Montage,” or, Blending “Archetypes” 169 ▪ Work that Makes One Free: The Great Day of Human Kind 175 ▪ The Relativity of Morality, or, Resurrection in the Crematorium 178 5 PILLORIES TO BARRICADE: KANTOR’S INFERNAL ECOLOGIES 184 “Constructivism”: Abstraction, Imagination, and the Poor Object of the Lowest Rank 185 “Symbolism”: Death and Memory, or, Repetition of the Readymade 190 ▪ The Performance: What Happens, and Initial Commentaries Thereupon 193 ▪ “Nothing But Marching On…”: Metaphors of Journey, Departure, and Return 204 ▪ “In This Picture I Have to Remain”: Metaphors of Shelter and Imprisonment 210 ▪ Objects and Their Actors and Their Objects 216 ▪ No Comment? The Grand Blends and “The Imperative of Contemptible Death” 222 Epilogue PERFORMING HUMANITY: TENSIONS AND CONTINUITIES 230 ▪ Liveness and Theatricality: Image, Illusion, and Interaction 235 ▪ Enacting Identities: On Cyber-CONTAINMENT and Extended Biomechanics 240 ▪ Always Already: The Human “Post” and the Ethics of Engagement 245 Notes 249 Works Cited 272 Three Figures and a Table Figure 1. The Magnanimous Cuckold: Lyubov Popova’s “construction” from above, as well as frontally 77 Figure 2. Akropolis from above: Jerzy Gurawski’s “scenic architecture” 153 Figure 3. Let the Artists Die!: the general layout of the space, and the actors in order of appearance 194 Table 1. The actors and their respective roles in the four acts of Akropolis (variant V) 149 Acknowledgements I have always appreciated Freddie Rokem’s early “fantasy,” expressed in his Preface to Performing History (University of Iowa Press 2000: ix), “that the ultimate goal of academic scholarship was to compose a study consisting of quotes so perfectly put together that no one would notice that this was an act of plagiarism.” While accusa- tions of plagiarism can readily be rebutted by the contextualist metaphor that the “meaning” is in the “weaving” (see S.C. Pepper’s World Hypotheses), a work this concerned with notions of situated and distributed cognition is inherently obliged to the various threads of thought and human belevolence that pervade its apparent weft. These extend infinitely beyond my ubiquitous quotation marks. Some of the most fertile cognitive ecologies I have been privileged to feed on were formed in The International Centre for Advanced Theatre Studies, or ICATS, summer schools, organized by Professor Pirkko Koski and co-tutored by Professors Bruce McConachie, Janelle Reinelt, Freddie Rokem, S.E. Wilmer, and W.B. Worthen. The three week-long sessions I participated in – 2003 to 2005, in Lammi and Helsinki – also remain the most fun experiences of my academic life; on both fronts my grati- tude extends to dozens of colleagues from dozens of countries around the world. Another formative experience has of course been that of Poland. In archival terms, special thanks are due to Bruno Chojak, Adela Karsznia, and Duncan Jamieson of the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław; and Anna Halczak and Bogdan Renczyński of Cricoteka in Kraków. For their various ways of enabling and facilitating my 2002 ex- change period in the University of Wrocław, I thank Dorota Michułka, Piotr Rudzki, and Juha Paavolainen. Warm thanks also go to Katarzyna Kwapisz Williams. Closer to home, the Polish materials alone would have wreaked chaos were it not for the various work premises I have been provided at the University of Tampere. For these and all other practical support I thank the former Department of Literature and the Arts (especially Tarja Lipsonen, Anne Sannikka, and Pekka Tammi) and more recently everyone at the Centre for Practise as Research in Theatre or T7. Special thanks to Director Mika Lehtinen at T7 for the coffee and bisquits that kept appearing during the final rounds of long nights in the late summer and early fall of 2010. Throughout, I have been enjoying the enduring support and enthusiasm of per- ceptive professors as my supervisors: in order of appearance, I pledge my gratitude to Pia Houni, Pentti Paavolainen, and Hanna Suutela. Not least, it is their superb suasive skill that is to be commended for the near miracle of my receiving so very many rounds of funding. Early on, this list also includes Aarre Heino and Panu Rajala. Bruce McConachie, Janelle Reinelt, Freddie Rokem, and Bill Worthen have en- hanced my thinking with solid advice, in and after ICATS; their insightful comments have remained with me, as something of an internalized sounding board throughout the years. While Bruce is to thank (or blame) for my initial turn to cognitive studies, I am grateful to them all and humble before the professional extent of their expertise. For abiding collegial support, and for sharing the absurdities of struggling with research, special thanks are due to my fellow postgraduates Riku Roihankorpi (now Ph.D.), Katriina Andrianov, Heli Ansio, Tiia Kurkela, and Sarianne Paasonen. Like it or not, Heli also nudged me toward the cognitive waters on which I remain adrift. Thanks also to all colleagues and professors involved in the Doctoral Program of Music, Theatre and Dance, in its many manifestations over the years – specifically to Kati Andrianov, Pauliina Hulkko, Erkki Huovinen, and Pentti Paavolainen, for the considerable effort of reading and commenting on an extensive manuscipt of 2007, in accordance to the “batch day” convention instituted therein. I am also much obliged to Professor Eric Clarke, who visited the Program in 2006, for his musicologist’s insight into my first attempts at marrying Gibson’s ecological approach to the art of theatre. For inspiring and entertaining discussions on all matters metaphorical, histori- cal, artistic, theoretical, and even life-related, a plethora of vaguely categorized thanks are due to Kaisa Ikäläinen, Ville Kivimäki, Maria Korteila, Ilkka Naulapää, Janne Tapper, and Petri Tervo. You come from different places but have all been important. For providing me with research materials otherwise inaccessible – often Polish dvds – I remain obliged to Owen Daly, Mikko Kanninen, Kaśka Kwapisz Williams, and Hannu Tommola. Also, I wish to thank Edwin Hutchins and Bruce McConachie for trusting me with drafts of cutting-edge research prior to publication. Of late, I take substantial pleasure in being positively challenged by kind yet perceptive pre-reviewers’ statements by John Lutterbie and Bruce McConachie. Also, I am deeply grateful (and this is the correct lexical choice) to Virginia Mattila for