"Erudite" Beer Sheva

Some Methodical Aspects of Teaching History of Art

"A born actor becomes apparent in the early childhood because it is only in the very early childhood that the world is taken as a Great Mystery. A source of any actor's performance is nothing but this improvisation in the face of the Mystery." T. Navarreau, "A paradox of the actor's skill".

It is not by chance that the authoress has chosen this epigraph. The child does not know real relations between him and the external world, he just realizes completely a game situation. It is always interesting to watch how unpredictably the child behaves. If he is not dispirited by education, feels free, then he is spontaneously artistic and his natural character is akin to the naturalness of young animals. And we are responsible for further safe keeping of such naturalness, free behavior, comfortableness of existence, in order that the everyday reality may not kill the inborn gladness of getting to know the world.

The theater studio which has been working for last six years in the learning center "Erudite" (Beer Sheva) enables teenagers not only to freely express themselves on the stage but to enter the world of the beautiful as well.

The wealth of the world drama, antique tragedy and comedy, Italian mask comedy, Spanish "golden age" drama, the writings of the authors of Elizabethan time, first of all Shakespeare, the masterpieces of our national drama - of all genres, from farce to tragedy, from poetry to intellectual drama, from Moliere to Corneille and Chekhov, from Shakespeare to Pirandello and Giraudoux - getting acquainted with these values forces everyone to think and feel.

Imagine that a tone-deaf person, ignorant of notes, comes up to a piano and hits the keys in disorder. It is of no importance for him that there are many keys and that each of them has its own meaning. It is not impossible that this person could be a genius and could suddenly play something beautiful. But this is just a chance. All others will need some explanation as to what the piano is, how to position one's hands, what the notes are, what the melody is, etc., and one should try and not to kill an individual spark which that person has. The imagination is to be always combined with the knowledge of the laws of art.

Lessons at the studio are based just on these considerations. The knowledge in the history of theater, music, painting, cinema is the basis, without which the educated person cannot be conceived as such. A special role is played by the theater, where all arts merge all together. The theater tells first of all through the actor, his sensations, mind, instinct, word, sense of rhythm. In our studio the teenager becomes such an actor. And now the whole system of professional subjects is used to get free one's personality, individuality. The language of stage requires the rhythm agreed with the breathing of this or that character. As Moliere says it, the actor (in our case the teenager) "should speak in a wide and clear manner and not to play anything he does not sense". And we suggest to start with watching, looking, seeing the life of real people.

In such a way we come closer to improvisation. These are exercises based on the sensations one receives from his sense organs: "follow the bird flying in the space", "listen to the tinkling of bells", "breathe in fresh morning air". And while in his real life one experience sensations naturally, unassisted by one's imagination, the actor on the stage has to improvise, trust and feel necessary sensations in spite of the fast that a real irritant is absent. Improvisation helps to overcome the first "enemy" - the timidity, and to find one's own ways of expression.

One more sort of exercise is an exercise with the mask. To help the student to overcome his constraint, we deprive him of his facial expression and make him become aware of expressive abilities of his body. Such masked sketches are psychological exercises. Thereupon we "turn on" the student's facial expression.

Practically the face muscles always move spontaneously. Looking at the collocutor we usually can define his attitude of mind. In everyday life the facial expression arises spontaneously, while on the stage the facial expression is an important part of one's skill as an actor.

The following step is the voice training i.e.: accent correction, work on breathing, articulation, intonation, which help to master speech. Speech articulation, rhythm, sound and word coloring are always of great importance. There is whole system helping to regulate strengths, stress culmination points, sharpen articulation, e.g. by means of singing words.

There is an interesting exercise: to tell "yes" and "no" with different modulation and shades of meanings. For instance, you can tell "yes" or "no" king-like, ingratiatingly, angrily, with a humor, or (which stirs up a particularly wild reaction)"imagine piglet lying on the cactus say "yes" or no".

Speech technique, voice, breathing is a special subject for studying and one more step in one's mastering the actor's skill. A great actor and producer George Pitoev wrote in 1923: "The body ignorant of the rhythm living in it will never be able to control its soul". Jean Dalcrose, whose school of rhythmic is famous worldwide also states: "The rhythmic is not an art but it is a preparation for any art performance". A body gymnastic does not limit rhythmics. The rhythm determines a "tangible sensation" of the role, and mice en scene.

As soon as one masters these components of the actor's skill or even if one has a basic idea about them, one can begin to work on the text of his role. The student should analyse the character, then study fragments, and at last the complete text. The student, discovers one fragment of the text after another, he begins to understand that the same text may be interpreted in many various ways depending on proposed situations. At this point we begin the play on searching the image, ability to allude to this image in any way with an appropriate intonation, a single gesture. The main target of the theater studio is training to think and feel. The sounding word can discover those depths of the literature text, which cannot be grasped in the process of reading "by eyes". Besides, there is also some implication undercurrent, and one should be trained to understand it correctly. K. Stanislavsky said: "I attend the theater performance for the implication since the text can be read by me at home".

Merriment and sadness, gladness and sorrow, laugh and tears - all these are our spiritual wealth, distinctive marks and indications of our spiritual growth. The theater is targeted at this. Our purpose is to enrich our children with this. And we can build a theater even without any material basis. V. Nemirovich-Danchenko said extremely exact words: "You can build a splendid theater building, order decorations, music, but this will not be a theater. While once two actors come to the square, spread a rug and, if they are talented, there is already a theater".

During her lessons at the studio the authoress always asks her students to pay attention to some definite and important steps of the art history because it is impossible to perform something on the stage if one does not know the epoch, its style, etc. The stage may immediately bring to light the lack of education or intellect in the actor. That is why we discuss paintings, hearing music (a good music, not only classic), make good use of video materials i.e. films, fragments of musical performances, etc. Such kind of complex teaching brings positive results immediately.

In conclusion the authoress wants to cite a letter of one of her students: "Our classes helped me to become sure of myself. Now I know that I can do many things both on the stage and in life. As Achmatova said "I learned to live a simple, wise life, to look at the Heaven and pray." And I realized that the world is multicolored and it is the art which makes the world colored and bright".