Culture Is the Body!

Author(s): Tadashi Suzuki and Kazuko Matsuoka

Source: Performing Arts Journal , 1984, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1984), pp. 28-35
Published by: Performing Arts Journal, Inc

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3245382

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 Culture Is The Body!

Tadashi Suzuki

ON ACTOR TRAINING

The main purpose of my method is to uncover and bring to the surface the
physically perceptive sensibility which actors had originally, before the
theatre acquired its various codified performing styles, and to heighten
their innate expressive abilities. I first began to think of the method when I
was trying to search for ways to examine the differences in physical percep-
tion among different peoples, such as are found while the actors on stage
just stand still, or have an impulse, take some action. I wished to integrate
these differences into something we humans could share as a common pro
perty, beyond all differences in race and nationality.

First of all, I felt the necessity of inspecting our human orientation, in sen-
sibility or feeling, toward the ground or floor-the attraction for the ground
which the lower half of the body feels. I extracted some basic ways of using
the body as perceiving various nuances of feeling, and then arranged them
to formulate my method.

Technically speaking, my method consists of training to learn to speak

powerfully and with clear articulation, and also to learn to make the whole
body speak, even when one keeps silent. It is thus that actors can learn th
best way to exist on the stage. By applying this method, I want to make i
possible for actors to develop their ability of physical expression and also
to nourish a tenacity of concentration.

In short, this training is, so to speak, a grammar necessary to materialize

the theatre that is in my mind. However, it is desirable that this "grammar"
should be assimilated into the body as a second instinct, just as you cannot

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enjoy a lively conversation as long as you are always conscious of grammar
in speaking. These techniques should be mastered, studied, until they
serve as an "operational hypothesis," so that the actors may truly feel
themselves "fictional" on stage. For actors to realize the images they
themselves pursue, they will have to develop at least this basic physical
sensibility.

In my opinion, a "cultured" society is one where the perceptive and ex-

pressive abilities of the human body are used to the full; where they provide
the basic means of communication. A civilized country is not always a
"cultured" society.

It is true that civilization originated in connection with the functions of the

human body; it may be interpreted as the expansion of basic functions of
the human body or the extension of the physical faculties-of the eyes,
ears, tongue, the hands and feet. For example, the invention of such
devices as the telescope and microscope is a result of human aspiration
and endeavor to see more, radicalizing the faculty of sight. The ac-
cumulated effect of such endeavors is civilization-the product of the ex-
pansion and extension of physical faculties.

What we have to consider, then, is the kind of energy required to materialize

such aspirations. That leads us to think about modernization. A criterion
some sociologists in the United States apply to distinguish betwen moder-
nized and pre-modernized societies is the ratio of animal-energy to non-
animal-energy used in production processes. Animal-energy here refers to
the physical energy supplied by human beings, horses or cattle, etc.; while
non-animal-energy refers to electric power, nuclear power and the like. One
way of showing whether a country is modernized is to calculate how much
non-animal-energy is used. Roughly speaking, in African and Near Eastern
countries, for example, the ratio of animal-energy used is very high, com-
pared with such countries as the United States or Japan, where energy
derived from oil, electricity, nuclear power is used in all processes of pro-
duction.

If we apply this thinking to the theatre, we notice that most contemporary

theatre is "modernized"; non-animal-energy is fully utilized. Lighting is
done through electricity. Elevators and revolving stages are operated by
electrical energy. The building of the theatre itself is the end-product of a
variety of industrial activities from the concrete foundation to the props and
scenery.

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On the contrary, the Japanese Noh theatre is a surviving example of pre-
modern theatre in which almost no non-animal-energy is used. Take music
for example. In the modern theatre, it is recorded and reproduced through
amplifiers and loud-speakers, whereas the voices of the dancer-actor and
the chorus and the sound of the instruments played on stage in the Noh
theatre are conveyed directly to the audience. Costumes and masks for Noh
plays are made by hand, and the stage itself is built based on traditional
principles of carpentry. Although electricity is used for lighting nowadays
(which I still object to-in the old days it used to be done by candles and
tapers), it is limited to the minimum, never like the elaborate and colorful
lighting of the "modern" theatre. Noh theatre is pervaded by the spirit of
creating something out of human skill and effort. So much so that the Noh
can be said to be the epitome of pre-modern theatre! It is a creation of
animal-energy.

As the theatre, either in Europe or in Japan, has kept up with the times and
has come to use non-animal-energy in every facet of its activities, one of the
resulting evils is that the faculties of the human body and physical sen-
sibility have been overspecialized to the point of separation. Just as civiliza-
tion has specialized the job of the eyes and created the microscope, moder-
nization has "dismembered" our physical faculties from our essential
selves.

What I am striving to do is to restore the wholeness of the human body i

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the theatrical context, not simply by going back to such traditional
theatrical forms as Noh and Kabuki; but by employing their unique virtues,
to create something transcending current practice in the modern theatre.

We need to bring together the physical functions once "dismembered"; to

regain the perceptive and expressive abilities and powers of the human
body. In doing so, we can maintain culture within civilization.

In my method of training actors, I place special emphasis on the feet,

because I believe that consciousness of the body's communication with the
ground leads to a great awareness of all the physical junctions of the body.

A basic part of my method of training involves actors stomping on the floor

for a certain period of time to rhythmic music, or rather, walking around
fiercely beating the floor with the feet in a semi-squatting posture. Then, the
moment the music stops, the actors relax their bodies totally, falling on the
floor. They lie completely still and quiet. After a while, music starts again,
but this time it must be slow and smooth. In accordance with the change in
the music, they slowly rise to their feet in any way they like, eventually stan-
ding upright, back in a natural posture. This training consists of a pair of
contrasting movements, that is to say, the dynamic and the static (motion
and rest), in other words, emission and repression of physical power. The
purpose of this training is to develop concentration on the body through
controlling the breathing.

The essential point of the first half of this training is to keep stomping with
a constant force, without swaying the upper half of the body. If the actor
does not concentrate his consciousness on his feet, legs and hips which
must be well-disciplined, it is impossible for him to continue to stomp con-
sistently, however energetic he may be. Moreover, without the spiritual
power and will to control his breathing, the upper half of his body gradually
begins to sway and then the rhythm of the stomping becomes irregular. If
you beat the floor with your feet, the force naturally influences the upper
half of the body to make it sway. As I get actors to stomp as forcefully as
possible, a reaction rises upwards so the more strongly they stomp the
more the upper half of their body sways. If they try to minimize the sway,
they have to repress the force with their hips. They have to stomp while
always being aware of the relationship between the upper and lower halves
of the body which are pivoted together at the hips.

Of course, emphasizing the fact that the construction of the human body
and the balance of the forces which support it are centered on the pelvic
region is not thinking unique to my method; but almost all the performing
arts invariably use such thinking. Only, I believe it is specific to my training
that first of all the actors are made to feel conscious of this by stomping
and beating the ground with their feet. This is derived from my belief that
the basic physical sensibility of any stage actor depends on his feet. In our

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daily life, we tend to disregard the importance of the feet. It is necessary for
us to be aware of the fact that the human body makes contact with the
ground through the feet, that the ground and the human body are in-
separable, as the latter is, in fact, part of the former, meaning that when we
die we return to the earth-to make the body, which usually functions un-
conscious of its relationship, aware of this fact by creating a strong sense
of impact through the beating of the ground with the feet.

This idea of mine has often been said to be quite Japanese, but it is not.
Even in classical European ballet in which the dancers seem to aim at jump-
ing from the ground to soar through the air, the basic physical sensibility
consists of a feeling of affinity to the ground.

Again in the traditional Japanese theatrical forms, such as Noh and Kabuki,
the balance of the two vectors leading towards the sky and the earth,
towards the heights and the depths, has been very important in physical ex-
pression. Only, in the traditional Japanese theatrical forms, these two
forces with vectors contrary to each other meet at the pelvic region, and the
energy derived from this tends to radiate horizontally. Therefore, the higher
the upper half of the body tries to go, the lower the lower half of the body
tries to sink to balance this movement. The feeling that the feet are planted
firmly on the ground is, thus, increased. This is symbolized in such
movements as sliding steps (Suri-ashl) or stomping (Ashi-byoshl) which ex-
press the affinity with the earth.

The late Shinobu Origuchi, a prominent Japanese anthropologist and man

of letters, said that when examining Japanese performing arts, he found
that the performers invariably stomp at some part of the performance and
that the appearing on the stage in itself signifies the treading down of evil
spirits under the ground; the stomping is called Hembai. Seen from this
point of view, the sliding steps (Suri-ashi) in Noh plays can be considered as
a preparatory movement to set off the stomping. According to Origuchi, the
essence of traditional Japanese dancing is wandering around the stage,
which originally signified sanctifying the place by treading down the evil
spirits. The series of movements in my training consists of two parts-first,
straining the whole body, concentrating the forces at the hips, stomping to
the same constant rhythm; and then, after collapsing on the floor to lie still,
getting up again to music like a marionette, by extending a calm strength
throughout the body. All is achieved by completely changing the quality of
what we might call the raw, unconcentrated body of everyday life. That is
why many beginners feel that they are just forced to move mechanically
and that the delicate nuances of their own bodies disappear. According to
my own experience in giving this training, actors in the United States, who
are close to realistic acting, tend to feel like that. Even though they begin
stomping forcefully and seriously, they soon lose their concentration and
their bodies "loosen." There are some people who watch this and consider
my training particularly Japanese; who say that the training is unsuitable

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for American actors because their legs are long compared with those of the
Japanese actors. However, it has nothing to do with the length of the legs
or the stamina, but with the discovery of an inner physical sensibility or
with the recognition of an inner and profound memory innate to the human
body. In other words, it is to do with the ability to uncover this profound
physical sensibility and to give it full play. Therefore, it is not necessarily
only Japanese actors who are likely to assimilate the aim of my training in-
to their body. Whether in Europe or in Japan, stomping or beating the
ground with the feet is a universal physical movement necessary for us to
become highly conscious of our own body or to create a "fictional" space,
which might also be called a ritualistic space, where we can achieve a per-
sonal metamorphosis.

The stomping or beating the floor with the feet originates in ancient
Japanese rituals.

In his "Six Lectures on the History of Traditional Japanese Performing

Arts" Origuchi mentions the Opening Ritual of the Heavenly Stone Wall in
the Japanese Creation Myth as the origin of the Sacred Dance (Kagura), and
talks about the rhythmical dancing to calm down the spirits, which a god-
dess named Ameno-Uzumeno-Mikoto danced, turning over a wooden tub
and stomping on it and striking it with the end of a stick. He says:

Perhaps the tub symbolized the earth. The goddess stomped on it

and struck it with a stick while making loud noises; actions sup-
posed to wake up and bring out the soul or spirit that was believed
to be under the tub, whether sleeping or hiding, in order to send it
to the unseen sacred body of the god nearby.

What he means to say is that the purpose of the action of stomping and
striking is not necessarily to tread down or suppress evil enemies but to
arouse their energy in order to use it to activate human life. As a result, the
same effect as of exorcism is brought about, for by acquiring the spirit of
the evil it is possible to overcome it. The fact that Noh and Kabuki actors
often stomp on the stage floor can be regarded as a practice related to this
old tradition.

Thus, the ancient Japanese stages were built on graves or mounds where
the souls of the dead were considered to dwell. This has led to the custom
that even now people hollow out the ground or bury a pot before building a
Noh stage over it. This is not only for the sake of technical effec-
tiveness-that the hollow ground makes the sound of stomping resound
better-but it is a procedure to create an illusion that the actor can conjure
up earth spirits or the spirits of ancestors who have returned to the earth, in
order to acquire their energy. The resonance enforces the physical feeling
of responding to the spirits. Even today such an illusion is necessary for ac-
tors on stage. For, the illusion that the energy of the spirits can be felt
through the feet to activate our own bodies is a most natural and valuable il-

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lusion for human beings. Noh is well blessed because it has continued to
cherish this idea right up to the present. Graves and mounds can be regard-
ed as wombs from which we have been born. In that sense the earth is a
"Mother" herself. Actors can undertake their roles on the premise that they
are connected with all humanity integrating individuals.

Perhaps it is not the upper half but the lower half of our body through which
the physical sensibility common to all races is most consciously expres-
sed; to be more specific, the feet. The feet are the last remaining part of the
human body which has kept, literally, in touch with the earth, the very sup-
porting base of all human activities.

(Compiled and translated by Kazuko Matsuoka)

Tadashi Suzuki is one of Japan's foremost theatre directors.

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