PHILLIP ZARRILLI

LECTURES

During his week-long residency, Phillip Zarrilli will present two lectures based on his new sole-authored book in progress, (toward) a phenomenology of acting, under contract with Routledge Press (London). Based on the Preface and Introduction of this new book, Lecture 1 is a more general/introductory lecture mapping the ‘studio’ as a meeting place for “embodied enquiry” and reflection. Lecture 2 is based on a specific chapter of the book and explore a specific topic in depth. Both lectures will make use of power-point/slide presentations, and short video clips.

LECTURE 1:

18 April 2018 (Wednesday)

19.00: 20:00

Scena F22, Frankopanska 22, Zagreb

Acting without ‘meaning’ or ‘motivation’: first-person accounts of acting in the pre-articulate world of immediate lived/living experience

 Stanislavsky clearly identified the need for actors to be able to ‘discover things anew’. How might a phenomenological perspective on embodied processes help the actor learn to “discover things anew” even when she is constantly involved I processes of repetition? Drawing specifically on first-person accounts of two non-verbal performances, Samuel Beckett’s Act Without Words I, and Ota Shogo’s The Water Station, in this lecture I explore acting ‘without meaning or motivation’. Here acting as a phenomenon and process is viewed as a pre-articulate world of immediate lived/living experience. I analyze in detail the actor’s lived/living (Leib) body(mind) as a ‘messenger of the unsaid’—observing how the performer’s ‘lifeworld’ (Lebenswelt) is constituted in the pre-articulate present beforewords, meaning, or motivation. Central to my analysis of the ‘unsaid’ are key concepts drawn from the work of philosophers Martin Heidegger and Mark Rowlands.

LECTURE 2:

20 April  (Friday) 
12:00: 13:00 Lecture

13:00: 14:00Panel Discussion
Velika scena, Akademija dramske umjetnosti, Trg Republike Hrvatske 5, Zagreb

Embodied Consciousness: where phenomenology, cognitive science, and performance meet

In this lecture, I explore ‘the studio’ as a site for philosophical exploration--a site where the training/practices of the actor offer the possibility of “doing” philosophy “in the flesh”. Citing the reflexive practices of key historical figures who have focused on the actor’s embodied consciousnesss--Zeami (the founder of Japanese noh), Stanislavsky, and Grotowski--I explore “the studio” as a meeting place—a location where phenomenology and cognitive science can inform the actor’s embodied process as a form of “embodied enquiry”, and (vice-versa) where reflecting on the actor’s complex modes of embodying consciousness can inform developments in phenomenology and cognitive science. Defining the actor’s work as a mode of ‘embodied enquiry’ is an invitation to further re-consider the complexitiesof the actor/performer’s embodied experience, awareness, attention, and consciousness from ‘inside’ the act of performing--a location marked by bodily/sensory/experiential depth.

PHILLIP ZARRILLI WORKSHOP: BODYMIND, BREATH, ACTIVATION, PERFORMANCE

Prof. Zarrilli's visit to Zagreb Academy of Drama Art is organized in the framework of prof. Sibila Petlevski's art&science project founded by Croatian Science Foundation.