Original film images from Meyerhold's Biomechanics.

Art Films, an Australian video art company, has just released a DVD with some original images from Meyerhold's Biomechanics, and I thought it was worth sharing them. Before today I had no idea about any film on Meyerhold's Biomechanics, so the first time I saw them I was surprised and in a shock; this is a jewel for anyone interested in theatre history and acting!

What I'm posting now is a promotional video, just extracts. I have no idea if these are all the original images the DVD contains because I have not ordered it yet; but these 2 minutes worth a post in a while:

Meyerhold's Theater and Biomechanics - Screener

This is a DVD created by Russian actors prepared in that school, with one of original Meyerhold's disciples. Here what Art Films says about the DVD:


"Meyerhold! A mix of creative genius and human vulnerability. Innumerable, those in agony over his loss, whom, like myself, loved him endlessly. Innumerable moments of excitement for those, who witnessed the creative magic of this one time wizard of the stage." Sergei Eisenstein Is Meyerhold, framed and murdered by Stalin in 1940, the "greatest theater master" (Eisenstein) of our century? Perhaps. He is without a doubt the most puzzling. Biomechanics was the core and culmination point of his theatrical concept. Its traces were disfigured, smeared, and distorted by history and politics. Its traces were searched and researched by many, including Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook and The Living Theater.

In the 1990's, after the opening of archives in the former Soviet Union, an original source of Biomechanics became known. Nikolai Kustow, the Biomechanics instructor in Meyerhold's Theater, maintained a "hidden" school and secretly passed on principles and etudes to a new genera-tion of actors.

In this video, Russian actor and pedagogue, Gennadi Bogdanov is shown presenting the most important etudes and principles of Biomechanics. In addition to historical film and photodocumentation of Biomechanics, the video also displays recent scenic work from Europe and the USA developed from the basis of Meyerhold's Biomechanics. In English, 43 mins, colour and black & white."

Picasso is painting... One way to understand "acting creation" through a physical action chain.

Teatro Potlach

More than 15 years ago Teatro Potlach, from Italy, visited Mexico City to offer some master classes and courses about their technical work.

At that time I was working for “Escenología” and I was part of the small company that Edgar Ceballos, the director, was preparing and which never made it to its first performance (1).

Everything around us was about physical actions, from Grotowski’s point of view as well from Theatre Anthropology’s views researched at I.S.T.A. (International School of Theatre Antrophology) (2), so these series of courses and master classes were very important for our development.

Teatro Potlach, Pino di Buduo (their director) and their actresses exhibited a concrete example of what our work could be in the future but, even more important, they were a reference point for a total comprehension of that technique we were trying to assimilate.

Creating physical actions, editing the line of actions, understanding the dramatic chain inside the line of actions by the player (the creator), those were really difficult points to comprehend; in general, practicing and working with details is the solution, but examples were absolutely necessary. So, how did Teatro Potlach show those points within a 1 hour master class?

At one point, one of the actresses called our attention; after showing in many acting ways the creation process of physical actions and how they become a chain of actions and a final story on stage, she decided to use a final example which comprised all the points in synthesis, an example that didn’t come from Theater but from Art: a singular scene from the documentary “Le Mystère Picasso”.

"Le Mystère Picasso" (DVD, Chinese version)

That scene showed us Picasso painting live before the camera and creating a painting in a minimal lapse of time: 5 minutes. We observed the development of creating a piece of art, in actions (in this case painting actions) which exemplified that chain of actions we were trying to understand before. The painter had many levels of creation, every one apparently independent from each other but inevitably connected: Picasso first painted three sunflowers, after that and over it a fish, after that and over it a cock, finally adding colour over all the images depicted before arriving to the conclusive figure, a Picasso painting.

That final figure was a result of each one of the others, step by step, but in the end, who couldn’t watch the process could only see the end result, the final figure, the final story.

Those 5 minutes were decisive for my professional activity, Picasso, as a genious, taught me, by creating, how every action could be woven with others to finally create the story we were looking for. Since that moment I’ve just continued exploring my way of weaving actions, literary actions, physical actions, image-actions. Picasso and his process are still working in my memory.

Well, after more than 15 years of my seeing this documentary at the old “Escuela de Bellas Artes” in Mexico, I found this video on sale inside a Chinese shop. I couldn’t resist sharing it, so you can use those images as you wish.

If you are interested in the whole documentary, a simple “google search” will direct you to Amazon or any other dedicated site. (3)

niveles creativos, cadenas de acciones... from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

"Le Mystère Picasso"
A film produced and directed by H.G. Clouzot
With: Pablo Picasso
Paris, France, 1956.

(1) Escenología... that company didn’t become a reality, but the experiences we lived there formed an epoch in my life. Escenología must be a pretext for many posts in this Blog.
(2) For information about I.S.T.A. visit: http://www.odinteatret.dk/ista/ista.htm
(3) About the documentary:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-mystery-of-picasso/