Conductive Corporeal Tension

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61384984%3A51210%2F25%3AN0000097" target="_blank" >RIV/61384984:51210/25:N0000097 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://dicam.unime.it/sites/dip12/files/2025-05/Progamma%20Convegno%20Cognitive%20Tools%20in%20Action.pdf" target="_blank" >https://dicam.unime.it/sites/dip12/files/2025-05/Progamma%20Convegno%20Cognitive%20Tools%20in%20Action.pdf</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Conductive Corporeal Tension

Original language description

One of the main goals of acting education is to transform the use of the actorʼs body (McCaw 2020). For acting pedagogues, the question is how to verbally initiate the path to this transformation without words blocking studentsʼ bodily experience. Verbally, we begin a process that cannot be described in words (Sennett in McCaw 2020). One way to deal with this dilemma is through metaphorical or poetic language. In my paper, I will discuss the metaphorical expression conductive corporeal tension used in the psychosomatic discipline of Dialogical Acting with the Inner Partner (Vyskočil 2003 and 2020, respectively), a variant of acting improvisation from ʻpoint zeroʼ. We cannot understand this term as a concept with a clearly defined meaning. Yet, it can initiate students to explore and discover bodily tension and expression. In my research, I use my personal experience of the discipline as a student and pedagogue, as well as my reflections from 2000–2003. Conductive corporeal tension has some features of Stanislavskyʼs throughaction, Csikszentmihalyiʼs flow, or Meyerholdʼs excitation. In contrast to the body tension, as Eugenio Barba (1991) understands, it also includes vocal expression, which is impossible to produce without a specific bodily tension. This combination of bodily, vocal, and speech expressivity, conditioned by a single corporeal tension, allows the actor to transcend the European dualism of mind and body and experience himself in unity. We can understand conductive corporeal tension as a metaphorical expression referring to electrical tension, current, and conductive materials. However, it does not stand isolated in the Dialogical Acting. It is further conceptualized in the pedagoguesʼ comments by a whole bunch of verbal expressions: body tonus, memory and gesture, internal bodily sense (or proprioception), intensity of expression, psychosomatic fitness, empathy, and the state ʻitʼ plays within us and with us (Komlosi 2024, Vyskočil 2024). We can, therefore, understand it as a conceptual metaphor. From a CMT perspective, however, the question arises regarding understanding the source and target domain in this case and how the mapping is done in the process of actor education (Kövecses 2009). Semantic indeterminacy is typical and desirable for metaphorical expressions used in acting pedagogy. They touch on the ʻinvisibleʼ acting qualities and allow the actor to verbalize his subtle experience of his own body (Smoljak 2024, McCaw 2020). // MUSILOVÁ, Martina. Conductive Corporeal Tension. The ʻinvisibleʼ quality of the actor. Conference paper. In Cognitive Futures in The Arts and Humanities Cognitive Tools in Action Messina (Italy) 2025 – 28-30 May 2025. 2025.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60403 - Performing arts studies (Musicology, Theater science, Dramaturgy)

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů