Theatre of Movement and Gesture

"The Theatre of Movement and Gesture" is the first English-language translation of the classic work, "Le Theatre du Geste," by Jacques Lecoq--one of the most influential theorists and teachers of what is now known as physical theatre. Departing from the Stanislavski school of acting, Lecoq emphasized physical movement, mime and non-text-based acting. His teaching was enormously influential on a number of well-known actors, directors and theatre practitioners, including Ariane Mnouchkine, Robert Wilson, Julie Taymor, and Peter Stein. This well-illustrated volume collects a number of his writings--along with contributions from some of his disciples--and presents a precious testimony to Lecoq's special vision of the art of acting and of its close relationship with the history of mime and of masked performance.

Despite his death in 1999, Lecoq's school in Paris is still a thriving institution, with students from all over the world who make the pilgrimage there to learn about clowning, mime, maskwork, and other forms of non-text-based theatre. Lecoq left only a handful of published texts, one of which David Bradby translated as "The Moving Body," published by Methuen and Routledge Inc in paperback in 2002.

Published in France in 1987, this is the book in which Lecoq first set out his philosophy of human movement, and the way it takes expressive form in a wide range of different performance traditions. He traces the history of pantomime, sets out his definition of the components of the art of mime, and discusses the explosion of physical theatre in the second half of the twentieth century. Interviews with major theatre practitioners Ariane Mnouchkine and Jean-Louis Barrault by Jean Perret, together with chapters by Perret on ?tienne Decroux and Marcel Marceau, fill out the historical material written by Lecoq, and a final section by Alain Gautr? celebrates the many physical theatre practitioners working in the 1980s.