Frantic assembly

The company is led by Artistic Director and co-founder Scott Graham. Their ambition is that they
continue to learn and remain committed to making brave and bold theatre. At times it is physically
dynamic and brutal. At others it's proudly tender and fragile. “But Frantic Assembly has always been
about more than just the work on stage. It is about the ethos of collaboration, of empowerment, of
that constant desire to improve. It is about telling stories in a voice we don't always hear and about
finding talent in places we don't always look.”

Frantic assembly tour extensively across the UK and have worked in over 40 countries world-wide
collaborating with some of today's most inspiring artists.

The Frantic Method is approaching devising as a series of tasks, each broken down into building
blocks. This is designed to establish progress from the simplest discoveries. The Frantic Method has
helped Frantic Assembly become leaders in movement direction within theatre. It is essentially
direction through movement and promotes an acute physical awareness that can be implemented in
moments of stillness just as it can be in the physically spectacular. The Frantic Method is at the heart
of all of our work on stage and in studios across the world, from Fatherland, Things I Know To Be
True, Othello, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time to our work with students of all ages
and abilities.

“Performers are encouraged to take a moment back to its simplest truth and build from there. This
places dancers, actors, students, teachers and all participants on the same starting point. Using
these building blocks they are empowered to find and create complex work through a process that is
safe, fun and constantly illuminating. This process came about through recognising my own
limitations coupled with a desire to teach and share something as soon as I learnt it. I wanted to
develop a language that felt accessible and honest. I wanted to share a process that would take
people past their perceived limitations. Over the years this has helped performers understand how
their bodies tell stories and how those bodies are capable of a strength and nuance they might not
have recognised before. The Frantic Method has helped Frantic Assembly become leaders in
movement direction within theatre. It is essentially direction through movement and promotes an
acute physical awareness that can be implemented in moments of stillness just as it can be in the
physically spectacular. The Frantic Method is at the heart of all of our work on stage and in studios
across the world, from Fatherland, Things I Know To Be True, Othello, The Curious Incident of the
Dog in the Night-Time to our work with students of all ages and abilities.” - Scott Graham, Artistic
Director and Co-Founder

ETHOS

We believe theatre is for all and promote diversity and access across all our activities. We are
committed to equality of opportunity and encourage applications from individuals currently
underrepresented in the arts.

Jacques Lecoq
The concept of The Journey
What does the concept of The Journey mean to Jacques Lecoq's approach to acting?

The journey means:

 traveling
 displacement
  exodus
 returning
 departing
 Journey implies one of perpetual openness and delight in discovery
 Journey can also imply an endless nightmare
 Journey signifies perpetual movement
 People, animals, inanimate objects can all journey.

‘Lecoq did not set out to create a complete system of acting and he rejected the idea that his techniques were
a 'method'. However, his life's work has focused on what his books called 'the moving body' and 'theatre of
movement and gesture'. (Burton, 2011).

Jacques Lecoq was involved in the process of social, political, and cultural renewal after World War 2. He
wanted to rethink the nature of text-based theatre and to create a theatre for the future; a theatre that was
universal. He worked on body centred training to explore the physical, cognitive and emotional states which
directly related to the operations and functions of motion, rhythm, shape, balance and counterbalance. This
acting approach explores the artistic impulse within muscle memory and the capacity for the individual to
express an idea through attuned sensory receptors of the body.

His school L 'Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq in France became a place for him to develop new
ways of working with the actor. The Lecoq actor training lasts for two years. The first year is devoted to
observation of the world and of the movements in it such as exploring the natural elements, animals, words,
sound and colour as well as in-depth exploration of the neutral mask and moves from silent exercises to a
point where the student actor can build a character. The second year is devoted to creating work which
explores dramatic territory such as Melodrama, Tragedy, The Chorus, Commedia dell 'arte and the art of the
Clown.

His approaches to acting:

 saw the body and how it moved through space as crucial to the generation of meaning in 20th
century theatre. He wanted to shift conventional word based theatre to a body centred theatre by
exploring the relationship between movement and acting.
 explored the circularity of the body to implant new physical circuits into the actor's body. His
exercises were focussed on playfulness and spontaneity.
 believed in the notion of 'play' within theatre. To play allowed the actor to shift the rules of word
based theatre and helped them to understand the rhythm, tempo and space in a performance.
 used the metaphor of The Journey as a fundamental base for his performance themes. He believed
metaphor transformed an actor's imaginative and creative energies.
 used the imagery in the language of The Journey and Gardening to invoke growth and development in
his actors' training.
 believed the actor's journey of discovery was crucial to opening up possibilities for future creative
development.
 believed acting methods should be based on ambiguity and opposites. His actors explored the push
and pull, struggle and stability, certainty and uncertainty of life.
 believed his actors had to ask the questions and try and find the answers. He would say 'Don't do
what I do: Do what you want to do' (Murray, 2003, p.45).
 believed in collaborative work to create a dynamic acting ensemble
 Auto-cours were fundamental to his approach to acting. An auto-cours is where his student actors
prepared a short devised performance to present to the whole school.
 believed that actors should train from neutrality to characterisation.
 believed that actors should not directly associate with the role they were playing .
  wanted his actors to understand the dynamics of space and how this affected their characterisation.
 believed that actors had to engage the audience who should find pleasure in the performance.
 believed that imagery for the audience should have a universal appeal.
 explored what kind of relationships were possible between performers and the audience,

The dramatic forms he used were:

 Neutral mask
 Tragedy
 Greek Chorus
 Commedia dell 'arte
 Melodrama
 Scripts
 Clowning

Each one of these forms had foundational acting techniques for an actor to express themselves through
movement.

Neutral mask

The neutral mask is ambiguous and can move in several directions at once in the workshops. Wearing the
neutral mask encourages the actors to find an economy of movement which is uncluttered by social patterns
and invites a sensual and somatic approach. The mask allows the body to express the emotion rather than the
face, hands and words.

Jacques Lecoq believed that the dramatic form of tragedy helped his actors to deepen their understanding of
body centred theatre as well as to develop an understanding of how to devise their own theatre from issues of
personal or political concern.

Jacques Lecoq believed that the success of characterisation was the ability to carry the image from the stage to
the audience and that a character should not become identical to the actor's personality, as this often reduced
the theatricality of the performance.

Melodrama

Melodrama was another dramatic form that Jacques Lecoq used to help his student actors develop body
centred characters. Melodrama is taught in the second year of training at his school and its aim is to give the
student actors further opportunities to explore the importance of heightened theatricality in their devised
work. It also provides a further in-depth study of the connection between physicality and the emotional states
of characters. This means that the student actors could physically explore such contradictory emotions as
remorse and retribution, evil and virtue, sadness and joy, as well as delving into the essence of stock
characters such as Villains and Heroes.

Clowning

Jacques Lecoq utterly rejected the superficiality of clown courses that had no depth or philosophical approach
behind them. Read and discuss with your peers online the information on pages 60 to 62 of the text where
Jacques Lecoq asks what lies at the core of this form of humour.

He said that the clown is:

 a dimension of our personalities

DV8
DV8 – Dance and Video 8

Artistic Policy

DV8 Physical Theatre's work is about taking risks, aesthetically and physically, about breaking down the
barriers between dance and theatre and, above all, communicating ideas and feelings clearly and
unpretentiously. It is determined to be radical yet accessible, and to take its work to as wide an audience as
possible. They are motivated by artistic inspiration and creative need: these, rather than financial,
organisational and touring demands dictate the creation of new works. The company has fought successfully
for funding to cover lengthy research and development periods in order to maintain rigorous artistic integrity
and quality in each new project. The focus of the creative approach is on reinvesting dance with meaning,
particularly where this has been lost through formalised techniques. Their work inherently questions the
traditional aesthetics and forms which pervade both modern and classical dance and attempts to push beyond
the values they reflect to enable discussion of wider and more complex issues. The strong commitment to film
and video continues. This reflects its ongoing interest in how two primarily visual media can enhance one
another and reach a crossover audience from within both forms. The company's reputation relies on pushing
its own boundaries and on the constant re-examination of the roles and relationships of men and women in
our society. Its policy insists on the importance of challenging our preconceptions of what dance can, and
should, address.

Gecko
Gecko is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed physical theatre company, led by Artistic Director
Amit Lahav. Amit has created an organic devising process that oscillates between intense periods of
experimentation, making brave leaps, failing and learning. It includes choreography, writing, storyboarding and
reflection. Every stage includes sonic and technical development alongside the choreography. Gecko tours
nationally and internationally and we are continuing to develop strong partnerships around the world. Beyond
the stage, we aspire to open the doors on our process via every possible avenue, be it digital, in schools or
through one-to-one relationships with our audience.

Gecko’s focus:

Gecko is an artist-led organisation, and the creation of artistic product drives all conversations from education
to marketing. The creation process is incredibly rigorous and productive to ensure the high quality demanded
by Gecko. It is a proven process which has created 7 celebrated shows since 2001. The creative process
happens over three years and includes the ‘creation tour’, where a show continues to develop whilst on tour.
The longevity of a show’s life, up to five years, means that the current show in development carries enormous
significance in all aspects of the company’s work.

Complicité
Complicité is an international touring theatre company, based in London. Founded in 1983 by Annabel Arden,
Fiona Gordon, Marcello Magni and Simon McBurney, the Company is now led by Artistic Director McBurney
OBE. Between 1993 and 2018 all the company’s work was produced by Judith Dimant.

Complicité began life as a collective and this spirit of collective enquiry, of collaborative curiosity, has driven
the work throughout its history. The Company is famous for making its work through extensive periods of
research and development which brings together performers, designers, writers, artists and specialists from
diverse fields to create the works – a process now known simply as ‘devising’.
The main body of work has been of devised theatre pieces and adaptations and revivals of classic texts but the
Company has also created opera and worked in other media, with radio productions of Mnemonic and John
Berger’s To The Wedding, a collaboration with The Pet Shop Boys in Trafalgar Square in central London, and
The Vertical Line, a multi-disciplinary installation performed in a disused tube station. If Complicité is
constantly percolating new collaborators, so too the work is in a constant state of evolution from the actor-led,
comic early pieces to the recent vast collaborations directed by McBurney which embrace intellectually
challenging material and cutting-edge technologies.

In 2015 the Company began a new annual programme: Complicité Associates. Each year, Complicité will work
with an emerging or mid-career artist, providing production and artistic support and producing a new show
that pushes both the artist’s own work and style, as well as stretching Complicité’s theatrical boundaries.
Learning and engagement are central to its work and its award-winning Creative Learning programme includes
professional development, work in schools and colleges and participatory projects for a range of groups.

Bibliography

https://sites.google.com/education.nsw.gov.au/jacqueslecoq/jacques-lecoq

https://www.franticassembly.co.uk

https://www.dv8.co.uk/

https://www.geckotheatre.com/

http://www.complicite.org/company.php