Source of Performance Energy’ is the new ongoing workshop, a part of series of acting programmes that has been conducted by Adishakti, Laboratory for theatre arts and research, since 2008. The workshop has been growing in terms of number and popularity. It has also garnered the attention of, not only stage actors but also actors hailing from TV industry and cinema. The distinguishing factor of this workshop from many other acting programmes is the uniqueness in the teaching methodology. Adishakti’s unique method, developed by the research and reanimation of traditional knowledge, focuses on five aspects — breath, emotion, rhythm, centres and voice. Participants are trained practically in all the five entities through various physical activities that even involves swimming and martial arts like Kalaripayattu.
Vinaykumar, the managing trustee and artistic director of Adishakti, stresses the importance of the physical training for actors, “When we say physical training, the first thing that strikes everyone’s mind is gymming, but fundamentally what an actor needs is strength and muscle flexibility. Only then he/she can enact using his/her faculties.” Talking about the methodology of Adishakti, he says, “What we are trying to do the with actors is make them find out the science behind the emotional transitions they go through in their day-to-day lives. That’s the ambiguous part every actor faces. Most of the time we are constructing a hypothesis for performance and try to execute it. It is more or less a trial and error method. So, instead, we study the emotional change in one person, which we call anatomical disturbance, and the science behind it for better acting.”
Participants practicing Kalaripayattu
Though the workshop vitally involves finding and understanding the origin of each emotion, it also is more about practically implementing one’s knowledge during the courses, “Most of the time we spend time bringing out emotions but the science behind them is also explained. At the end of the day, the workshop teaches a person to use the emotions he/she employs in daily life wherever and whenever the person want,” concludes Vinay.
