The Toltec teachings and performance training : complementary practices of exploration

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study aims to discuss the complementarity of Western performance training and the Toltec Teachings. It is motivated by a recognition that performers in training might often have to develop their own means to training „system‟ post-study, especially in environments where limited opportunities exist to share in group contexts, such as Jerzi Grotowski‟s Theatre Laboratory or Eugenio Barba‟s Odin Teatret. The solution of self-study (study of the self by the self) is explored in answer to this challenge. Owing to the fact that theatre commentators and practitioners often reference the need to look to alternative models or „forms of civilisation‟ for support and illumination, the potential of the Toltec Nimomashtic System - a self-motivated system for studying the self - is considered as a potential „other‟ in this regard. This study takes into account that complementarity implies both similarities and differences between the two paths in question, and considers how these might offer support to the challenge of self-study in particular, as well as the context of performance training more generally. Comparisons are made between Western performance training and the Toltec Teachings with reference to theory (ideology), aims and outcomes, and practice (methodology). Such comparative analysis reveals that sharing the characteristics of mystery, resistance and paradox enhances complementarity. This suggests that both the way of the performer and the Warriors Path are paths of exile and exclusion. They have in common a defiance of social convention and a bias toward the non-ordinary or extra daily. This is evidenced most specifically through the pursuit of presence as a state defined by absence.Perception, as a central determinant of presence, is positioned in relation to discoveries in modern physics and Barba‟s (in Christoffersen 1993: 159) synergistic „traveller of speed‟ concept, as a means to elucidation. Investigation of specific Toltec ideas and methods that offer perspectives on destructuring the ego and the worldview it sustains, are seen to support Grotowski‟s via negativa as a process of eliminating blockages that impede effective expression, as well as Barba‟s (Christoffersen 1992: 80) „refusal of culture‟ as a negation or deformation of daily behaviour. Compatible approaches to shifting perceptions of the self by the self, in order to achieve the shared outcome of presence, thus consolidate the overall complementarity of the two paths.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University