演员的诞生（一）For the love of the stage（1）

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本期的节目让我们一起来听听，在澳大利亚的舞台上，演员是如何诞生的。

演员的诞生（一）For the love of the stage（1）

Chris Hatzis 
Eavesdrop on Experts, a podcast about stories of inspiration and insights. It'swhere expert types obsess, confess and profess. I'm Chris Hatzis. Let'seavesdrop on experts changing the world - one lecture, one experiment, oneinterview at a time.

For many people, the scariestthing they will ever do in their lives is any form of public speaking. And itseems like more occupations require good public speaking skills as a keyselection criterion. Whether you're a manager, university lecturer or theatreor film actor, having a strong presence is more than simply having a goodvoice. It's movement, it's being in tune with your body, your breathing andevery part of your physical makeup.

Rinske Ginsberg is a lecturer intheatre, movement and performance-making at the Victorian College of the Arts.She has over 35 years experience as teacher, performer, movement educator anddramaturge in theatre education institutions and in the performing artsindustry. She's had a long association with the Melbourne Fringe and wasawarded the title of 'Melbourne Fringe Living Legend' in 2016. 

Rinske is currently developingher research into non-verbal communication, physical dramaturgy and the use oftheatre-training techniques for developing skills in teaching and learning acrossacademic disciplines. 

Our reporter Steve Grimwadetravelled down St Kilda Road to the VCA to chat to Rinske about her work inperformance, theatre and acting, as well as her storied career in theperforming arts scene in Melbourne in the 70s and 80s. Before they began,though, Rinske put Steve through his paces with some breathing and vocalexercises to prepare him for the gruelling interview to come.

Steve Grimwade 
What do you want me to do?

Rinske Ginsberg 
Standing up. Well you've probably done some breathing exercises. Just connect -no, we're not muscling the breath. We're just connecting with the breath, justallowing the muscles of your abdomen to relax and letting the breath flow inthrough the nose, filling up all the spaces of your body, letting it release ofits own accord. Then we could start with warming up the muscles of the face.

Steve Grimwade 
So do you want me to speak as well as - or just to move literally my mouth?

Rinske Ginsberg 
See if you can just blow through your lips. [Lips blowing sfx] That's it. Youcan play with that a little bit.

Steve Grimwade 
It's quite hard to do to actually have totally relaxed lips.

Rinske Ginsberg 
Great. That's pretty good. And now let's try a little hum. So first of all I'dlike you to just rub your chest, and just maybe [hits chest] give a little bit…and just, bring your vibrations to your chest… good…

Rinske Ginsberg 
Now work up to your lips… make your lips nice and soft because you've justblown through them… feel the vibrations on your lips… beautiful. So then wecould just play with, you know, different kinds of sounds…. Or really, this isjust like…

Steve Grimwade 
The thing is I haven't got the imagination to do anything but repeat whatyou're doing.

Rinske Ginsberg 
riding a motorbike on the hills…

Steve Grimwade 
I think that's enough. Is that OK with you, is there more to go?

Rinske Ginsberg 
Oh, we can be here for hours. Really, we've only just started.

Steve Grimwade 
I think we'd better move on, it's not my shyness. That's great.

Rinske Ginsberg 
Thank you.

Christ Hatzis 
That's very nice work, Steve. I think you're ready to go.

Steve Grimwade 
When I was thinking how to introduce you I did think about the word actor andthat it scanned better than performer. It has one less syllable. But itoccurred to me that there might be a considered difference between a performerand an actor, and do you distinguish between the two?

Rinske Ginsberg 
I guess there's a fine distinction. I usually use the term performer in everycircumstance, and for me an actor really is the interpretive artist and theperformer is not just interpretive but generative and adaptive and creative interms of devising new work. That's how I see it, and in terms of what we're -at the moment we've - this year we're starting two new degrees, two BFAs - aBFA Acting and a BFA Theatre - and that's how we distinguish those disciplinesif you like; that one is devising and making new work and generating materialof all kinds, and an actor is one who is interpreting new and - oh contemporaryand historical work on a traditional level.



Steve Grimwade 
Does tradition hold to this day? Is tradition changing? Is there less need foractors and more need for performers?



Rinske Ginsberg 
I wouldn't say so. I think the whole craft of theatre really is aboutstorytelling. That's at the very heart of it on a primitive level. We all wantto sit around a campfire and hear people tell us things that we will neverexperience. So both historical and traditional and classical work has as muchrelevance today as brand new site-specific, immersive, ambulant private workdoes. So that's what I think.



Steve Grimwade 
I guess - I mean the first question is how can you teach acting? How cansomeone else - how can someone learn to embody someone else?

Rinske Ginsberg 
The first thing that you want to frame really to answer this question is thatthe processes of cognition thinking are acting and feeling all happen togetherat once. It's not like I move without thinking and feeling; it all happenstogether. 

 
Steve Grimwade 
Well at first do you need to have a thorough sense of your own body and mindbefore you can truly inhabit someone else's?

Rinske Ginsberg 
I think the thing from my perspective - because I'm a lecturer in theatre butmy speciality is the actor's body. So I'm training or basically I think what Ireally am training is awareness. So that's your first - it's the cornerstonefor any learning for an actor - is that the actor or the performer is going toreplicate the behaviour of either real life or heightened life, exaggeratedlife.

So you want to be a student ofyour own behaviour and the way that we need to do that - yeah, the way that ithappens is that you start to distinguish what it is you are doing at any point.Really the breath is the key. You start with the breath; you're conscious ofhow your body moves with breath; you become conscious of the shape of yourbody; about your physical structure; how it goes together; how it moves. Thoseare fundamental things to begin an actor's training. You start with the bodyand then you put the body in space. 

Then you put the body in spacewith action and then you put the body with space with action and text, and inbetween all those the things that are happening concurrently is an imaginative- fusion of imagination is happening with expression all the time.

So, yeah, that's on a very -that's what I would say is fundamental practice for the training of an actor,as it is in a way for the training of any form that is interactive with theenvironment. Sports people - they have to become highly tuned into the firingof their neuromuscular responses; how that happens; really training that;refining the impulse into action. I guess that's one of the things that wepredicate all our training on - is the actor's body and both the functionalinstrumental aspect of that towards the expressivity. These days in a way Ithink actor training is really vital because - and it could be - I'd love to doit with all kinds of different populations, because as we become more and moreor less and less physical in relation to the environment and we spend more timeon screens, people lose the idea of space. 

I don't know whether you'rehaving that experience of walking down a crowded street and people just runinto you, because it's like they can't imagine that you're real and three-dimensionalbecause everything that they do is on two dimensions. It's looking at a flatscreen. So that's really very interesting and necessary if you're going toinhabit live performance.

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