Yes, that was something to look forward to: he would lead a 'rencontre'. Jacques Lecoq, who has died aged 77, was one of the greatest mime artists and perhaps more importantly one of the finest teachers of acting in our time. Jacques Lecoq was a French actor, mime artist, and theatre director. The clown is that part of you that fails again and again (tripping on the banana peel, getting hit in the face with the cream pie) but will come back the next day with a beautiful, irrational faith that things will turn out different. The school was also located on the same street that Jacques Copeau was born. Jacques Lecoq. For this special feature in memory of Jacques Lecoq, who died in January, Total Theatre asked a selection of his ex-students, colleagues and friends to share some personal reminiscences of the master. As part of this approach, Lecoq often incorporated "animal exercises" into . The students can research the animals behavior, habitat, and other characteristics, and then use that information to create a detailed character. Fay Lecoq assures me that the school her husband founded and led will continue with a team of Lecoq-trained teachers. Lecoq surpassed both of them in the sheer exuberance and depth of his genius. Bouffon (English originally from French: "farceur", "comique", "jester") is a modern French theater term that was re-coined in the early 1960s by Jacques Lecoq at his L'cole Internationale de Thtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris to describe a specific style of performance work that has a main focus in the art of mockery. Lecoq used two kinds of masks. Through his techniques he introduced to us the possibility of magic on the stage and his training and wisdom became the backbone of my own work. Jacques was a man of extraordinary perspectives. Shortly before leaving the school in 1990, our entire year was gathered together for a farewell chat. That is the question. Many actors sought Lecoq's training initially because Lecoq provided methods for people who wished to create their own work and did not want to only work out of a playwright's text.[6]. He takes me to the space: it is a symphony of wood old beams in the roof and a sprung floor which is burnished orange. Lecoq believed that actors should use their bodies to express emotions and ideas, rather than relying on words alone. [3], In 1956, he returned to Paris to open his school, cole Internationale de thtre Jacques Lecoq, where he spent most of his time until his death, filling in as international speaker and master class giver for the Union of Theatres of Europe. What we have as our duty and, I hope, our joy is to carry on his work. [4] The expressive masks are basically character masks that are depicting a very particular of character with a specific emotion or reaction. What idea? It is necessary to look at how beings and things move, and how they are reflected in us. Jacques Lecoq, In La Grande Salle, Jacques Lecoq. Lecoq strove to reawaken our basic physical, emotional and imaginative values. Once done, you can continue to the main exercises. Following many of his exercise sessions, Lecoq found it important to think back on his period of exercise and the various routines that he had performed and felt that doing so bettered his mind and emotions. The end result should be that you gain control of your body in order to use it in exactly the way you want to. Once Lecoq's students became comfortable with the neutral masks, he would move on to working with them with larval masks, expressive masks, the commedia masks, half masks, gradually working towards the smallest mask in his repertoire: the clown's red nose. Side rib stretches work on the same principle, but require you to go out to the side instead. Bim Mason writes: In 1982 Jacques Lecoq was invited by the Arts Council to teach the British Summer School of Mime. But to attain this means taking risks and breaking down habits. Like Nijinski, the great dancer, did he remain suspended in air? These are the prepositions of Jacques Lecoq. The Animal Improv Game: This game is similar to the popular improv game Freeze, but with a twist: when the game is paused, the students must take on the movements and sounds of a specific animal. The word gave rise to the English word buffoon. depot? Lecoq described the movement of the body through space as required by gymnastics to be purely abstract. It developed the red hues of claret, lots of dense, vigorous, athletic humps from all the ferreting around, with a blooming fullness, dilations and overflowings from his constant efforts to update the scents of the day. Don't let your body twist up while you're doing this; face the front throughout. But for him, perspective had nothing to do with distance. As a teacher he was unsurpassed. Lecoq himself believed in the importance of freedom and creativity from his students, giving an actor the confidence to creatively express themselves, rather than being bogged down by stringent rules. As you develop your awareness of your own body and movement, it's vital to look at how other people hold themselves. Jacques and I have a conversation on the phone we speak for twenty minutes. The documentary includes footage of Lecoq working with students at his Paris theatre school in addition to numerous interviews with some of his most well-known, former pupils. Curve back into Bear, and then back into Bird. and starts a naughty tap-tapping. [4] Three of the principal skills that he encouraged in his students were le jeu (playfulness), complicit (togetherness) and disponibilit (openness). We started by identifying what these peculiarities were, so we could begin to peel them away. My gesture was simple enough pointing insistently at the open fly. Jacques Lecoq. Larval masks - Jacques Lecoq Method 1:48. While Lecoq was a part of this company he learned a great deal about Jacques Copeau's techniques in training. . Its a Gender An essay on the Performance. Later we watched the 'autocours'. While theres a lot more detail on this technique to explore, we hope this gives you a starting point to go and discover more. Thousands of actors have been touched by him without realising it. Lee Strasberg's Animal Exercise VS Animal Exercise in Jacques Lecoq. He will always be a great reference point and someone attached to some very good memories. He is a truly great and remarkable man who once accused me of being un touriste dans mon ecole, and for that I warmly thank him. Kristin Fredricksson. He was certainly a man of vision and truly awesome as a teacher. Toute Bouge' (Everything Moves), the title of Lecoq's lecture demonstration, is an obvious statement, yet from his point of view all phenomena provided an endless source of material and inspiration. For him, there were no vanishing points, only clarity, diversity and supremely co-existence. They contain some fundamental principles of movement in the theatrical space. Nobody could do it, not even with a machine gun. They enable us to observe with great precision a particular detail which then becomes the major theme. (Lecoq, 1997:34) As the performer wearing a mask, we should limit ourselves to a minimal number of games. He pushed back the boundaries between theatrical styles and discovered hidden links between them, opening up vast tracts of possibilities, giving students a map but, by not prescribing on matters of taste or content, he allowed them plenty of scope for making their own discoveries and setting their own destinations. Lecoq, Jacques (1997). Jacques Lecoq is regarded as one of the twentieth century's most influential teachers of the physical art of acting. It was amazing to see his enthusiasm and kindness and to listen to his comments. [5] The communicative potential of body, space and gesture. Beneath me the warm boards spread out like a beach beneath bare feet. Thank you Jacques, you cleared, for many of us, the mists of frustration and confusion and showed us new possibilities to make our work dynamic, relevant to our lives and challengingly important in our culture. It is the same with touching the mask, or eating and drinking, the ability for a mask to eat and drink doesnt exist. What he offered in his school was, in a word, preparation of the body, of the voice, of the art of collaboration (which the theatre is the most extreme artistic representation of), and of the imagination. Think about your balance and centre of gravity while doing the exercise. We then bid our farewells and went our separate ways. [6] Lecoq classifies gestures into three major groups: gestures of action, expression, and demonstration.[6]. Tap-tap it raps out a rhythm tap-tap-tap. You move with no story behind your movement. [4] Lecoq's pedagogy has yielded diverse cohorts of students with a wide range of creative impulses and techniques. I am flat-out In 1956 he started his own school of mime in Paris, which over the next four decades became the nursery of several generations of brilliant mime artists and actors. where once sweating men came fist to boxing fist, This make-up projects the face of Everyman during the performance, which enables all members of the audience to identify with the situation. H. Scott Heist writes: You throw a ball in the air does it remain immobile for a moment or not? Following many of his exercise sessions, Lecoq found it important to think back on his period of exercise and the various routines that he had performed and felt that doing so bettered his mind and emotions. Think of a cat sitting comfortably on a wall, ready to leap up if a bird comes near. Dick McCaw writes: September 1990, Glasgow. He taught us to be artists. Lecoq doesn't just teach theatre, he teaches a philosophy of life, which it is up to us to take or cast aside. both students start waddling like ducks and quacking). However, the ensemble may at times require to be in major, and there are other ways to achieve this. During World War II he began exploring gymnastics, mime, movement and dance with a group who used performance . First stand with your left foot forward on a diagonal, and raise your left arm in front of you to shoulder height. David Glass writes: Lecoq's death marks the passing of one of our greatest theatre teachers. cole internationale de thtre Jacques Lecoq, History of Mime & Timeline of Development. Some training in physics provides my answer on the ball. Last edited on 19 February 2023, at 16:35, cole internationale de thtre Jacques Lecoq, cole Internationale de thtre Jacques Lecoq, l'cole Internationale de Thtre Jacques Lecoq - Paris, "Jacques Lecoq, Director, 77; A Master Mime", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jacques_Lecoq&oldid=1140333231, Claude Chagrin, British actor, mime and film director, This page was last edited on 19 February 2023, at 16:35. Jacques Lecoq View on Animal Exercises Jacques Lecoq was a French actor, mime artist, and theatre director. No reaction! Lecoq's school in Paris attracted an elite of acting students from all parts of the world. His influence is wider reaching and more profound than he was ever really given credit for. Lecoq did not want to ever tell a student how to do something "right." You are totally present and aware. Last of all, the full body swing starts with a relaxed body, which you just allow to swing forwards, down as far as it will go. He emphasized the importance of finding the most fitting voice for each actor's mask, and he believed that there was room for reinvention and play in regards to traditional commedia dell'arte conventions. So she stayed in the wings waiting for the moment when he had to come off to get a special mask. See more advice for creating new work, or check out more from our Open House. When your arm is fully stretched, let it drop, allowing your head to tip over in that direction at the same time. [4] The mask is automatically associated with conflict. This is where the students perform rehearsed impros in front of the entire school and Monsieur Lecoq. The following week, after working on the exercise again several hours a day, with this "adjustment", you bring the exercise back to the workshop. Lecoq's theory of mime departed from the tradition of wholly silent, speechless mime, of which the chief exponent and guru was the great Etienne Decroux (who schooled Jean Louis-Barrault in the film Les Enfants Du Paradis and taught the famous white-face mime artist Marcel Marceau). Whether it was the liberation of France or the student protests of 1968, the expressive clowning of Jacques Lecoq has been an expansive force of expression and cultural renewal against cultural stagnation and defeat. The excitement this gave me deepened when I went to Lecoq's school the following year. Simon McBurney writes: Jacques Lecoq was a man of vision. He strived for sincerity and authenticity in acting and performance. Along with other methods such as mime, improvisation, and mask work, Lecoq put forth the idea of studying animals as a source of actor training. Through exploring every possibility of a situation a level of play can be reached, which can engage the audience. He only posed questions. I was very fortunate to be able to attend; after three years of constant rehearsing and touring my work had grown stale. Tension states, are an important device to express the emotion and character of the performer. Jacques Lecoq, mime artist and teacher, born December 15, 1921; died January 19, 1999, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. The phrase or command which he gave each student at the end of their second year, from which to create a performance, was beautifully chosen. In life I want students to be alive, and on stage I want them to be artists." By focusing on the natural tensions within your body, falling into the rhythm of the ensemble and paying attention to the space, you can free the body to move more freely and instinctively its all about opening yourself up to play, to see what reactions your body naturally have, freeing up from movements that might seem clich or habitual. We're not aiming to turn anyone into Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Chris Hoy; what we are working towards here is eliminating the gap between the thought and the movement, making the body as responsive as any instrument to the player's demands. And then try to become that animal - the body, the movement, the sounds. He saw through their mistakes, and pointed at the essential theme on which they were working 'water', apparently banal and simple. He was interested in creating a site to build on, not a finished edifice. One of these techniques that really influenced Lecoq's work was the concept of natural gymnastics. As a teacher he was unsurpassed. Teachers from both traditions have worked in or founded actor training programs in the United States. Raise your right arm up in front of you to shoulder height, and raise your left arm behind you, then let them both swing, releasing your knees on the drop of each swing. We use cookies where essential and to help us improve your experience of our website. Franco Cordelli writes: If you look at two parallel stories Lecoq's and his contemporary Marcel Marceaus it is striking how their different approaches were in fact responses to the same question. We have been talking about doing a workshop together on Laughter. - Jacques Lecoq The neutral mask, when placed on the face of a performer, is not entirely neutral. Whilst working on the techniques of practitioner Jacques Lecoq, paying particular focus to working with mask, it is clear that something can come from almost nothing. The last mask in the series is the red clown nose which is the last step in the student's process. Observation of real life as the main thrust of drama training is not original but to include all of the natural world was. The building was previously a boxing center and was where Francisco Amoros, a huge proponent of physical education, developed his own gymnastic method. Founded in 1956 by Jacques Lecoq, the school offers a professional and intensive two-year course emphasizing the body, movement and space as entry points in theatrical performance and prepares its students to create collaboratively. Allow your face to float upwards, and visualise a warm sun, or the moon, or some kind of light source in front of you. He was a stimulator, an instigator constantly handing us new lenses through which to see the world of our creativity. These changed and developed during his practice and have been further developed by other practitioners. [2], He was first introduced to theatre and acting by Jacques Copeau's daughter Marie-Hlne and her husband, Jean Dast. Their physicality was efficient and purposeful, but also reflected meaning and direction, and a sense of personality or character. De-construction simply means to break down your actions, from one single movement to the next. Lecoq was a visionary able to inspire those he worked with. Teaching it well, no doubt, but not really following the man himself who would have entered the new millennium with leaps and bounds of the creative and poetic mind to find new challenges with which to confront his students and his admirers. by David Farmer | Acting, Directing and Devising, Features. Workshop leaders around Europe teach the 'Lecoq Technique'. During the 1968 student uprisings in Paris, the pupils asked to teach themselves. Each of these movements is a "form" to be learnt, practiced, rehearsed, refined and performed. However, before Lecoq came to view the body as a vehicle of artistic expression, he had trained extensively as a sportsman, in particular in athletics and swimming. In this country, the London-based Theatre de Complicite is probably the best-known exponent of his ideas. He offered no solutions. Games & exercises to bring you into the world of theatre . Please, do not stop writing! It is more about the feeling., Join The Inspiring Drama Teacher and get access to: Online Course, Monthly Live Zoom Sessions, Marked Assignment and Lesson Plan Vault. But the most important element, which we forget at our peril, is that he was constantly changing, developing, researching, trying out new directions and setting new goals. Allison Cologna and Catherine Marmier write: Those of us lucky enough to have trained with this brilliant theatre practitioner and teacher at his school in Paris sense the enormity of this great loss to the theatrical world. As a young physiotherapist after the second world war, he saw how a man with paralysis could organise his body in order to walk, and taught him to do so. Instead you need to breathe as naturally as possible during most of them: only adjust your breathing patterns where the exercise specifically requires it. With play, comes a level of surprise and unpredictability, which is a key source in keeping audience engagement. Bravo Jacques, and thank you. The Saint-Denis teaching stresses the actor's service to text, and uses only character masks, though some of [9], Lecoq wrote on the art and philosophy of mimicry and miming. You know mime is something encoded in nature. He was clear, direct and passionate with a, sometimes, disconcerting sense of humour.