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Fogal, Claire Arianne

University of British Columbia

This dissertation documents and analyzes the previously undocumented pedagogical practices and innovations of four North American senior teachers who together have taught over 2500 students in Western Canada over the past four decades: Dean Fogal, Linda Putnam, Kathleen Weiss, and David MacMurray Smith. In different ways, each has extended the physical theatre lineages of either French Corporeal Mime Etienne Decroux or Polish Director Jerzy Grotowski, or both. Focused on the complex issue of transmission of embodied practices, I examine the changes that Fogal and Putnam made in their own performance pedagogies after having trained directly with Decroux (Fogal) and Grotowski (Putnam). I also explore the pedagogical practices of Weiss and MacMurray Smith who both studied with Putnam, while MacMurray Smith also trained in Corporeal Mime with Jean Asselin and Denise Boulanger (who studied with Decroux for five years). This project has involved archival research and literature review, including study of Indigenous models of relational research which have influenced my approach. Following UBC protocols for ethical research, the thesis also builds from personal interviews, group discussions, arts-based qualitative research, and participatory collaborative research including filmed demonstrations and teaching sessions. Through the guidance and support of the UBC Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Public Scholars Initiative, this thesis includes two documentary films crafted from this footage. The introductory film Swimming Back to Source provides context for understanding my connection to Decroux’s work through my father Dean Fogal. Within Chapter 3, the film Relational Performance Pedagogy documents and shares Fogal, Putnam, Weiss, and MacMurray Smith’s respective performance pedagogies, practices, and perspectives. These four teachers have developed what I term “relational performance pedagogy” as a result of principles they learned from Decroux and Grotowski as well as their own innovations from within the laboratory theatre tradition. Techniques developed by these teachers promote the autonomy and wellbeing of the actor by cultivating a capacity for what I define as portable “grounded belonging” rooted in both the training/performance space itself and in the surrounding ensemble (fellow actors and audience members).

Text; Moving Image

2024-02-29

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/87490

Theatre

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/