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SESSIONS The silent wisdom: teaching LMA for actors by Gabriela Gonzalez, Argentina/UK Paper Laban Movement Studies theory has been enriched by the constant research and application of Laban’s ideas by his disciples. In the particular case of actor’s training, since beginning of XX Century Laban’s theories have been largely related to movement training for actors. Today LMA is widely used in Higher Education in many countries around the world (America, England, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina are included in this survey), however, it seems that the practitioners applying this system have not yet produced written material about their work. Thomas Casciero, who is a CMA and teach LMA to theatre student, found this lack of theoretical production himself while researching how to apply LMA to actor’s training. This issue was also spotted by Barbara Adrian in her paper on LMA for actors: she acknowledged the lack of history and reports on the work done, and alerted of the dangers of not reporting on the possible changes: "consequently, the danger is that theoretical base will remain just that, an idea of what Effort is, or Shape, or Space." (Adrian, 2002, p. 84). What Casciero and Adrian are wondering is whether LMA for actors exists at all. Is there a particular approach to LMA that is more suitable for actors? Has LMA been modified in any way to cater for the actor needs? By the way, what are the actor needs? Do not they move like the rest of us? Looking for clues to discover the specificity of the actor’s work this paper looks at the work of mayor representatives of the field like Stanislavski, Grotowski, Barba and others. The work of these practitioners is scattered but continuous, and though it is eclectic it allows to unveil concepts that are essential to contemporary actor training. One of the central problematic of acting and actor training seems to be ‘duality’: the duality of the actor being subject (artist/creator) and object (character/performance) of his art. The backbone of the study is therefore the exploration of how LMA relates to both areas of actor training: development of the actor himself (his expressivity/presence) on the one hand, and the actor’s production (character, actions score, etc.) on the other. Because of the lack of initial written material it was necessary to explore in a general way how practitioners are actually applying LMA. Given the fact that the main development has taken place in Higher Education, a survey was designed that explores how LMA is actually taught to future actors. The survey looks into the teaching choices of the lecturer regarding every area of LMA and different aspects of the actor’s work; it also encompasses the practitioners’ background (training, other teaching experiences, etc.) in order to identify choices that relate more to the practitioners own interests or history than to the actor’s needs. The result is a first glimpse of the work done that leaves many unanswered questions; hopefully this lack of answers will stimulate further research on this area. This paper is product of the research project that is conducted by Gabriela Gonzalez MA as her Master dissertation for the Somatic Studies and Labananalysis Master Course, at Surrey University, UK. Gabriela Gonzalez (MA, Lancaster) is actually finishing the Labananalysis and Somatic Studies Master course at Surrey University, UK. Trained as an actor and Theatre researcher in Argentina, she performed and directed theatre pieces, and published several articles and papers in conferences about actor training. She has taught Movement for actors at University in Argentina for several years, combining different somatic disciplines such as "Sensopercepcion", and actor training disciplines such as Physical Actions and Anthropological Theatre with psychosomatic approaches such as bioenergetics. She is now incorporating the LMA material in a new short course of movement for actors taught at La Casona (Theatre training and research centre) in Barcelona.
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