Hulton, D and Kapsali, M (2017) Yoga and Stanislavski: reflections on the past and applications for the present and future. Stanislavski Studies, 5 (1). pp. 37-47. ISSN 2056-7790
Abstract
Stanislavski’s interest in yoga and the influence of the discipline on the creation of the System have been illuminatingly acknowledged and examined by a number of scholars. Nonetheless, an aspect that has gone largely unnoticed is that Stanislavski drew from a kind of yoga that in some crucial respects is very different from the kinds of contemporary yoga that are practised internationally today. The most important difference is the absence of established yoga postures in the manuals that Stanislavski used in his day, and the centrality of yoga postures in the practice of the discipline today. Based on this crucial difference, this paper will propose ways in which understandings of contemporary yoga can be brought into relationship with key aspects of the System. It begins by summarising the historical background to the relationship between yoga and actor training with particular reference to the position of yoga postures within nineteenth-century literature on yoga. It then considers how ideas and practices within Stanislavski’s system – such as those related to “purposeful action”, “inner action”, “inner life”, “active imagination” and the idea of the “monitor” – can be illuminated, accessed and challenged by approaches to the yoga postures as they have been developed in the last 50 years. In so doing, the article, as a whole, takes as a premise the increasing demands on the young actor for performer flexibility and range, rather than specialization, and in its conclusion will touch on ways in which yoga can act as a bridge for the contemporary actor between different models of actor training and thereby affect a shift towards possible future models.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Stanislavski Studies on 02 Mar 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/20567790.2017.1294382. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Yoga, modern postural yoga, the system, performer training |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > Performance and Cultural Industries (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 30 Jan 2017 12:13 |
Last Modified: | 02 Sep 2018 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/20567790.2017.1294382 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:111245 |