‘Yours Neutrally, Habitational Action’: Performance between Theatre and Dance

Abstract

A milestone development in a practice-as-research investigation led to the identification of ‘habitational action’ as a term that resists a priori restrictions of inner–outer problematics when discussing performer processes. In this article Frank Camilleri cross-references the term with ‘neutral action’ to locate it conceptually and historically; first with Jacques Lecoq's pedagogical mask work, and then with Yvonne Rainer's conceptualization of the ‘neutral doer’. The cross-referencing to specific theatre and dance contexts is also intended to problematize psychophysicality as a central aspect of current actor training discourse. Frank Camilleri is Associate Professor in Theatre Studies at the University of Malta and Artistic Director of Icarus Performance Project. In 2007 he co-founded Icarus Publishing with Odin Teatret and the Grotowski Institute. He is also Visiting Professor in Theatre and Performance at the University of Huddersfield.