The Importance Of Bios By Eugenio Barba

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INTRODUCTION

“I am interested in a very elementary question: why when i see two actors doing the same thing, I get fascinated by one and not the other” (4) This question is the primary reason to why I decided to explore this topic. The question was asked by Eugenio Barba, a world renowned theatre practitioner who has dedicated his life to answer the question. He did this by travelling around the world to study different theatre traditions. From ballet to Kathakali, he has studied everything and came up with a study called theatre anthropology. This is a study of the performer’s pre expressive scenic bios which constituted by a set of principles (5). ‘Scenic bios’ is defined as the performer’s physical and mental presence. …show more content…

These levels of organization in the performance are only distinguishable and separable by the performer them him/herself, that to through analytical research and abstraction during the technical work of the composition done by the performer. What this basically means is that pre expressivity helps the performer properly organize the dynamics, time frames etc. in their piece. It is essentially characterizing your message in an action, gesture or movement "even before this life attempts something" (paper canoe pg 16, 17). Having the ability to focus on your pre expressivity expands your knowledge not just practically but in other factors as well. Barba developed five principles of pre expressivity to help get the performer into perspective. They are a set of rules that the performer must follow to achieve pre expressivity and to do their best on stage. With the help of these principles the actor must erase daily behaviour and tap into their extra daily behaviour to be in a pre expressive state. The classification of ‘daily behaviour’ comes from actions that are culturally and socially predetermined and ingrained into our brains. Different cultures have different daily behaviours. So Barba’s goal was to develop or govern a performer’s scenic

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