Techniques and Exercises for Movement-based Theatre

Techniques and Exercises for Movement-based Theatre is a collection of exercises based on Maya Tångeberg- Grischin’s extensive career as a performer, director, pedagogue, and researcher. It is both a practical handbook for theatre teachers, directors, actors and dancers and an historical overview and analysis of theatre techniques of the past fifty years. The work is published online in the Theatre Academy´s publication series Nivel.

Dr. Maya Tångeberg-Grischin is an internationally awarded movement-based theatre specialist who was born and trained as a teacher in Switzerland. Subsequently, she studied with the legendary Jacques Lecoq in Paris and with director Radu Penciulescu in Stockholm. In 1982, she moved to Finland and has directed more than 120 plays – dramas, dance-theatre and mime performances and operas – in Finland and abroad. In the course of her career, Tångeberg-Grischin has conducted a wide range of workshops and established a four-year physical theatre training programme at the University of Applied Arts in Vaasa.

In Techniques and Exercises for Movement-based Theatre Maya Tångeberg-Grischin gives theoretical background to movement-based theatre (she prefers to use this term instead of psycho-physical theatre) and its training. The exercises themselves are grouped in three parts: for beginners, for medium level (professional students) and for third level, focusing on the development of virtuoso techniques as mime.

Tångeberg-Grishin’s pedagogical aims have always been led by her directing experience and needs. Her main interest has, since her Lecoqian beginnings, been collective theatre work, and the connection between body-techniques, stage expression and the actors’ expressions. She has an extensive knowledge of the physical techniques of classical ballet and the methods of Etienne Decroux, Jerzy Grotowski, Rudi Penka, Joe Chaikin, and many others.

Stylization of expression, theatricality, and the aesthetic and philosophical principles of classical Asian theatres form Maya Tångeberg-Grishin’s guiding ideas in search of theatre away from realism and towards stylized theatre, mime, and mask-theatre.

During her career, Maya Tångeberg-Grischin has studied dance and mask-theatre on Bali and kathakali, bharatnatyam and kutiyattam in India. She also conducted three years of post-doctoral research at the National Academy for Chinese Theatre Arts in Beijing, focusing on female expression in kunqu and jingju.

Read the web publication here
Maya U. Tångeberg-Grischin
Techniques and Exercises for Movement-based Theatre
Nivel 20. Theatre Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki. 2023
ISBN 978-952-353-069-0
ISSN 2341-9679