The theatre practisioner Jacque Lecoq was born in Paris, December 15, 1921.
He was most famous for his method on physical theatre, movement and mime taught at l'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq since 1956. He founded the school.
He first began to learn the art of Commedia Dell'Larte as he lived in Italy for 8 years. Whilst in Italy, he met up with a sculptor Amleto Sartori to which then they created the neutral mask.
When he came back to France, he opened a school of mime. He did also do some television work, but his school was such a big success he focused all his time on teaching. During when he was alive, he developed a teaching programme, and he also founded the stage design department of the school, making the name l'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. Jacque Lecoq died in January 19th 1999 but he was known to have been teaching a few days before. His wife now continues his successfull school and continues to teach students his techniques.
His main focus is to create the neutral mask, using techniques, his students learn to become neautral, adopt neutral features. This is to help the students become neutral, so then they can adopt other styles.What did we do in the lesson to understand Jacque Lecoq
We were given a mask to help others become neutral. We were told to make our facial expressions fill the mask, to help us with the neuteal character we were becoming. Personally, this part was difficult because I had a full mask on, other did have half masks therefore they were able to complete this. Then, we had to let the mask become ourselves, by picking out an object we coudl create a character. We watched others perform and performed ourselves with the object. We then took the masks off and then explained how we felt. I felt really exhilarated from it. Then we went into partners, and one of the partners put on the mask whilst the other looked after them. The person wearing the mask let themselves go in a sense. Then, we had to think of a word that the character we have on the spot, and one that suited our character. My character's 'chosen' word was 'hair'. Joe was asking questions then I had to reply with the word hair. I felt this lesson I totally became out myself, and although this happened. I throughorly enjoyed the lesson because it made me think about how I act and how it signifies me, aswell as others characteristics signify them.
You start off by talking about the neutral mask. However this lesson was on character masks. The neutral mask lesson was a different lesson. What was the point of the neutral masks? Why must the actor first become neutral?
ReplyDeleteHello--the photo you have is not of Jacques Lecoq--it is of Carlo Mazzone-Clementi, a great teacher who worked with Lecoq during those 8 years in Italy. Carlo went to the USA and started his own school: Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre. The Dell'Arte School is now 38 years old, and is in California. It has a one-year program and a 3 years MFA program, a professional company and summer workshops.
ReplyDeletewww.dellarte.com
To answer Andrew's question, the actor must first become neutral so you can play different energies, different characters, different elements than your own set of habits, and find the level of performance energy needed by the actor.