Physical Theatre; post by Brittany

In one of our lessons a constraint that we decided to include in our improvisation and creation was physical theatre.

Physical theatre is a genre of theatrical performance that pursues storytelling through primarily physical means -

Physical theatre is a form of performance in which movement and physicality of the body has predominant part in the narrative of a piece.

There are several quite distinct traditions of performance which all describe themselves using the term 'physical theatre', which has led to a lot of confusions as to what the definition of physical theatre actually is. The term 'physical theatre; has been applied to performances consisting mainly of;

- mime

- contemporary dance

- theatrical clowning and other physical comedy

- some forms of puppetry

- theatrical acrobatics

Whilst performers base their performances around all of the above and claim to be using 'physical theatre', the essential and key distinguishing factor is a focus on the narrative, character and storytelling. Although, it is often difficult to draw a distinct boundary between what is and what is not physical theatre, and distinctions are often made quite arbitrarily by critics and performing companies.

Some practitioners, such as Lloyd Newson, express a resistance to the term 'physical theatre' as they feel as though it is used as a 'miscellaneous' category, which is classified for anything that does not fall nearly into a category of literary dramatic theatre or contemporary dance. Contemporary theatre including post-modern performance, devised performance, visual performance and post-dramatic performance are often simply labelled as 'physical theatre' without any reasoning other than simply because they are unusual in some way, which is incorrect. 

Modern physical theatre has grown from a variety of origins; mime and theatrical clowning schools, such as L'Ecole iinternational de Theatre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, have had a big influence on many expressions physical theatre. practitioners such as Steven Berkoff and John Wright received their initial training at similar institutions. Ccontemporarydance has also had a strong influence on what we regard as physical theatre, partly because most physical theatre now requires actors to have a strong level of physical control and flexibility over the body.