Viewpoints, creativity and embodied learning: developing perceptual and kinaesthetic skills in non-dancers studying undergraduate university drama

Abstract

Viewpoints are a structural approach to training and directing for theatre. Originating from the innovative, inventive and exploratory approach of Mary Overlie and the self-confessed scavenger approach of Anne Bogart, Viewpoints offers a practical philosophy of working. As a training approach it begins with a disciplined engagement of the body in space and time. The tangible elements of the Viewpoints provide a set of tasks on which the student can focus, thus freeing the imagination and spirit to create. Yet at the same time the systematic logic of Viewpoints supports novice practitioners to begin to question their perception, invest in creative practice that demands action and exploration, and to deconstruct, re-organise and rebuild scores and sequences in the pursuit of theatre that is visceral and visual. This essay reports on undergraduate student experiences of learning Viewpoints. It interrogates the demands of embodied learning of the movement/structural system on non-dancers and examines student-actor experiences of embodied learning from multiple of subject positions – observer/participant/creator/reflector/actor.

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