Communication in Theatre Directing and Performance: From Rehears ...

responded in this mirror fashion, for example, swooping up and down a scale in portamento, stopping at arbitrary points, and recommencing from the stopped note after internally recognising the feeling and the sensations in the laryngeal area. This, too, was accompanied by gestures of the arms, flowing to directly reflect the vocal pitch trails. Mainly as a result of this specific intervention, the student overcame the difficulty, going on to gain a high grade in her examination and followed it with training in recording studio management.

Whenever the needy student has been willing to trust my sometimes unusual methods, allowing a flow of experience that disengages cerebral activity as the core of practice, I have found that using kinaesthetic awareness to internalise elements of knowledge has produced superior results. In such situations, the swiftest route to comprehension has been through my own demonstration and as a result of my direct working knowledge. I began to wonder if this might translate into other learning situations, specifically within the performing arts. Maybe, during the rehearsal process, by modelling the required skill, a teacher or a director showing the physical body in action allows a student or performer to feel empathetic understanding in a purely biological sense (see 2.2.1 ‘Underlying Science’, reference to ‘mirror neurons’), which might in turn be used by the performer within his or her perspective as an artist. Certainly, I have also been aware of particular teaching styles at a crosscultural level that utilise this type of teaching.

My interest in undertaking this research stems from an accumulation of formal education, realised over many years and also gathered from a lifetime’s experience of developing the body as a medium of communication. This was the foundation of the study, along with particular insights that were important, even instrumental, in bringing to completion the questions that I propose.

My enquiry engages the processes of guided rehearsal. Although that enquiry is surely about artistry, rehearsal, and performance, all of which must contain personal style and individuality, the analysis of that input is, I believe, a dispassionate approach that merits serious consideration. Even though the processes of rehearsal must work within the individual