…ensemble is generated and sustained by the quality of attention that the individuals who comprise the ensemble pay to themselves and their relationships (Britton, 2010b, p.5).
the nature of “liveness”, asking, “How can I be live in front of an audience” and “how can I facilitate this in others?” (Britton, personal communication. 19 December 2012). In this sense the ensemble is not a fixed form or ideal condition, rather it is a living process that is realised and encountered in each moment of practice. Britton first began working with the notion of ensemble theatre as an actor and director in the United Kingdom with touring companies including Third Theatre and Aztec Theatre between 1990 and 1997. Britton went on to form Quiddity Theatre with Hillary Eliot in Australia, exploring meetings between physical theatre, dance and text and the integration of choreographed and improvised performance. In Australia, Britton also established and directed the Quiddity Ensemble1 (2001-2004). In 2004 Britton returned to England, taking up an academic post at the University of Huddersfield where he developed and ran a masters degree in “Ensemble Physical Theatre: Training and Performance” (2007-2011), and formed Duende (2010), an international ensemble of performers. While many of Britton’s notions of ensemble and his strong emphasis on actor training can be traced back to his earlier work with Third Theatre, the theoretical analysis and written articulation of these principles did not take shape until his later work as a researcher and lecturer. Britton continues to perform and direct with Duende, and runs regular workshops in Europe with a focus on improvisation and “ensemble physical theatre”.
Britton’s emphasis on ensemble as a central aspect of actor training follows a long tradition of European ensemble practices, exemplified in the work of many of the practitioners discussed so far including Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau and Grotowski. We can also note the way in which many of these directors also turned to rhythmic and musical devices and analogies in looking to develop qualities of connectivity and responsiveness within their ensembles. As Copeau stated:
I consider the displacements, gestures, attitudes, groupings as a kind of orchestration i.e. to the art of making use of each instruments individual tonal quality with an eye to the ensemble effect, so I am sure that the knowledge of certain laws of muscular economy, sacrifice of personal effects, influence on space, elimination of useless effort, co-ordination of attitudes and immediate adaptation to various atmospheres, should allow the actor to blend his temperament with those of the ensemble and to regulate
the relationships between the soloist and the protagonist, as in a musical symphony (Copeau, 1990, p.66).
While Britton’s approach to actor training is not as explicitly musical as many of the practices discussed so far, he shares with these practitioners an emphasis on psychophysical principles rooted in the indissoluble relationship between perception and action (Roach, 1993; Zarrilli, 2009; Blair, 2008; Hodge, 2010). As a continuation of the “laboratory” approach to actor training (Osiński, 1986), Britton’s practices are not predicated on the teaching of specific skills or a performance style, rather their main role is to create structures through which a process of exploration, experimentation and experience can take place. Principles such as these enable participants in this work to develop their own capacity and sense of themselves as performers while also empowering them to make informed choices about how they act and react within an ensemble context.
As with Meyerhold, in the work of Britton music plays an important role in accompanying the training of actors. Music provides a shared temporal context in which actors interact, facilitating qualities of immersion within training exercises, providing a framework for the development of compositional awareness and physical coordination. Yet, where in Meyerhold’s work the actor’s “body” was referred to as the primary “material” to be “organised” (Meyerhold, [1922]1969 p.198), Britton’s training clearly begins with the “organisation” of attention. In the processes of ensemble training Britton suggests that there is a need for a “…precise and appropriate quality of attention” (Britton, 2010b, p.11). As such, much of Britton’s training practice is focused on cultivating specific modes of attention, developed within and directed towards ensemble.
Britton describes ensemble as a dynamic process that is based primarily on the use of attention (Britton, 2010b). As with Scollon (1982) ensemble in this sense is not a thing in itself but rather a quality of relationship that emerges through a shared process. In Britton’s training practices, this is a process that must be continuously enacted by participants, regarding the ways they relate to their own actions along with the actions of others. Attention in this sense, like tempo and rhythm, is applicable to theatrical and musical ensembles alike. In this vein (and for the purposes of this examination), I put
forward the following definition of ensemble as being together within a common rhythmic field accessed and sustained through specific modes of attention.
In considering the nature of attention within actor training, Simon Murray and John Keefe state that “…attention is about finely tuned and deep listening, looking, feeling, sensing and knowing” (Murray and Keefe, 2007, p.149). Murray and Keefe further suggest that an actor’s attention “…combines the paradoxical combinations of letting go and being fully engaged” (Murray and Keefe, 2007, p.149). Other related aspects of attention are discussed by Phillip Zarrilli (2004) in his article ‘Toward a Phenomenological Model of the Actor’s Embodied Modes of Experience’. Here Zarrilli extends Drew Leder’s (1990) concepts of “surface” or “recessive” body (the former directed outward and the latter inward) by adding his own concept of the “aesthetic inner bodymind”. This “mode of experience” takes the form of a “dialectic” between “outward” and “inward” experience, encompassing the actor’s voluntary awareness of exteroception, proprioception and interoception (Zarrilli, 2004, p.657). What the actor aspires to in such models is the capacity to attend to and integrate inner and outer experience/perception, being simultaneously engaged and responsive.
Britton also adopts a model of dual “experience” in his work, which he refers to simply as the “self-with-others” (Britton, 2010b, p.9). This term is used by Britton to describe the attentional state of an ensemble actor, whereby inner and outer experience are intrinsically linked:
The self-with-others is a notion of the extended self, of the mindful self at the threshold between the secret, idiosyncratic, unique internal world and appropriate responsiveness to the external universe (Britton, 2010b, p.9).
This notion informs much of Britton’s work on ensemble training, in which he proposes that the quality of attention achieved by his actors not only affects the nature of their individual actions but also the quality of the relationships that form the ensemble. “Self- with-others” as such, is a two way process whereby work on oneself is simultaneous with work on the interrelationships within the ensemble, both aspects intrinsically linked and capable of influencing each other. It might be useful to consider ensemble in this sense through a non-linear emergent framework in which individual elements affect the
whole and vice versa. Physicist Herman Haken refers to such forms of two-way interaction between the whole and its parts as “synergetics”:
The upwards direction is the local-to-global causation, through which novel dynamics emerge. The downward direction is the global-to-local determination, whereby a global order parameter ‘enslaves’ the constituents and effectively governs local interactions. There is no supervisor or agent that causes order: the system is self-organized. The spooky thing here, of course, is that while the parts do cause the behaviour of the whole, the behaviour of the whole also constrains the behaviour of its parts according to a majority rule; it is a case of circular causation (Buzsaki, 2006, p.14).
The circular nature of such relationships is of great significance here, this being what allows such “synergetic” systems to function without the need of a singular controlling force. What is being suggested here, is that it is the entrainment of all these elements into a singular rhythmic process that allows them to contribute and be affected by the system as a whole. Such forms of emergent organisation based on rhythmic relationships take place at a cellular level in the formation and functioning of bodily organs. These principles can also be observed on a larger scale, in the synchronized flashing of fireflies, in the coordinated motion of a flock of birds, and in the complex moment-to-moment negotiation of pedestrians crossing a busy intersection (Strogatz, 2004). In all these situations there is no single leader responsible for coordinating the group, rather it is the “circular causation” taking place between each individual’s rhythms and their awareness or responsivity to the group that generates a coordinated field of activity.
In the complicity and mutual listening that takes place within an ensemble process, I have often observed the same phenomenon, whereby subtle changes in rhythmic timings and dynamics are constantly being negotiated within the group. This coordination for the most part takes place below the level of conscious thought, involving split second reactions to multiple stimuli, processes to which our unconscious is much better suited. Yet despite this being a predominantly unconscious process, the realisation of such a field appears to be predicated on the quality of attention afforded by an individual to their own rhythm, to the rhythm of another, and to the emergent rhythm of the ensemble as a whole. In these ways I as an ensemble member train myself to listen simultaneously to myself and the other, to be present and engaged in what is happening in the “here and now”, and to simultaneously “let
go” and surrender control when and where necessary. By encountering the rhythm of the ensemble and, in Stanislavski’s words, “…subordinating to it everybody who takes part in the performance”, we find ourselves within a living ensemble existing as “one harmonious whole” (Stanislavski, 1967, p.93).
In Britton’s training practices, it is through the cultivation of these subtle modes of attention that the connectivity of ensemble emerges. Although this is not often discussed in terms of rhythm, the mechanisms that facilitate such forms of connectivity are by their nature rhythmic, being based on the patterning, organisation, and coupling of attention in time. To support this analysis of the rhythmic nature of attention in ensemble practices, we will now turn to the theories of “attentional rhythmicity” as put forward by psychologist Mari Riess Jones (1976), which offer a framework for considering the nature of this relationship and its potentials within a training context.