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Background
Inspired by the work of leading Australian theatre practitioners
Lindy Davies, Richard Murphet and Jenny Kemp, the Agoraphobics
Clinic gives actors a pathway to the 'subliminal and metaphoric
power of words expressed through a vivid physical and spatial
aesthetic.' (Davies, 1993) This process allows actors to
make connections with language, their bodies and their artistry
in a way that shifts this connection from the rational and
premeditated to the subconscious and intuitive. The
director, Naomi Edwards completed her
Graduate Diploma in Dramatic Art Direction at Victorian College
of Arts in Melbourne Australia in 2003. The principles and
ideas behind the approach to acting which lie at the heart of
Agoraphobics Clinic underpin the pedagogy of actor training at
VCA and also underpin the rehearsal process of the core members
of staff at VCA. It was seeing this work in action and the
profound results it achieved in performance which has inspired
Naomi to continue developing her work within this paradigm. Where
does the name come from?
The Agoraphobics Clinic is a name given to theatre by public
space theorist and architect Peter Davidson. The common
understanding of agoraphobia is fear of open spaces, but can be
more specifically defined as a fear to cross space between you
and another. Derived from the ancient Greek work, agora -
a place of meeting, those who meet and the meeting itself, the
name Agoraphobics Clinic reflects Naomi's belief in theatre's
primary capability of bringing people together in the same space
and time to engage with word and image. Aims
The Agoraphobics Clinic consists of an ensemble of actors
working to further explore and develop this process, which
honours their intuitive impulses, and places the actor and the
word at the centre of the performance text. Led by
director Naomi Edwards, the Agoraphobics Clinic consists of 10 -
15 actors training in the impulse based process. The first
group of the Agoraphobics Clinic was held as part of the RADA
Graduate Program in London, and worked toward a showing in December
2004. The first text worked on was Anouilh's Antigone. Process
The process of the work consists of training actors in the
impulse grid, aiming to develop the actors' ability to work from
impulse in a simple physical parameter without interference from
the rational, the editor or the ego. Once this place of
energised and stimulated neutrality is found, the work moves
into the abstract stage. The abstract stage aims to create
a connection between the word and the need to speak by playing
with objects, light and sound. This grid is one of play
and free association, making highly imaginative, and at times
archetypal connections to the text. Also during this
stage, the actors start to find the impulse to speak in relation
to the other actors with whom they share the scene. The
final stage finds this connection in the concrete spatial design
of the play space. Akin to the traditional blocking stage,
this blueprinting stage allows the actor to find the need to
speak with all the associations made thus far, from the most
satisfying and appropriate place in the set design. The
aim of Agoraphobics Clinic is to develop and refine this
systemised approach which allows an actor to draw on their
complete range of sensibilities - their imagination, memory,
physical sensation, association, responsiveness and musicality
to create deep, complex and connected performance. Rather
than the premeditated and rational character-driven processes
which have been so dominant in acting technique for the past
century, Agoraphobics Clinic aims to research and train actors
in a process which opens up a more creative, intuitive,
metaphoric and organic approach to interpreting text and
realising the transformation of the actor and word. Back
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