Physical theater

Physical theatre is a well-known genre of theatrical performance that encompasses storytelling primarily through physical movement. Although several performance theatre disciplines are often described as "physical theatre", the genre's characteristic aspect is a reliance on physical motion of the performers rather than or combined with text to convey storytelling. Performers can communicate through various body gestures (including using the body to portray emotions).

Certain institutions suggest that all physical theatre genres shares common characteristics, although individual performances do not need to exhibit all such characteristics to be defined as physical theatre. Research into the training or "work" of physical theatre artists cites an amalgamation of numerous elements adopted as a means to further inform the theatrical research/production. These elements include:

Some practitioners, such as Lloyd Newson, despite being the first company to incorporate the term Physical Theater into his company's title (DVD Physical Theater), has expressed concern that the expression is now being used as a "miscellaneous" category, which includes anything that does not fall neatly into literary dramatic theater or contemporary dance. He is also frustrated that many companies and performers that describe what they do as physical theatre, lack physical skills, training and/or expertise in movement. As such Contemporary theater including post-modern performance, devised performance, visual performance, and post-dramatic performance, while having their own distinct definitions, are often simply labelled "physical theatre" without any reason other than because they are unusual in some way.

It is also problematic that dance is of a theatrical nature. A dance piece will be called "physical theatre" because it includes elements of spoken word, character, or narrative; it is theatrical and physical but does not necessarily share anything in common with a potential (and nascent) physical theatre tradition.

A modern physical theater has grown from a variety of origins. Mime and theatrical clowning schools, such as L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, have had a big influence on many modern expressions of physical theatre. Practitioners such as Steven Berkoff and John Wright received their initial training at such institutions. Contemporary Dance has also had a strong influence on what we regard as physical theatre, partly because most physical theatre requires actors to have a level of physical control and flexibility. Those qualities are rarely found in those who do not have some sort of movement background. Modern physical theatre also has strong roots in more ancient traditions such as Commedia dell'arte and some suggest links to the ancient greek theatre, particularly the theatre of Aristophanes.

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