The actor is one of the cornerstones of theater. For a performance to reach a successful conclusion, at least from a technical standpoint, two key participants are essential: on one side, the actor, and on the other, the audience.
To convey their message, the actor employs a variety of tools and techniques, such as body language and stage presence; voice modulation and diction improvement; reworking the text, context, and its nuances; stage interpretation, and a set of other tools that make their dramatic performance more effective.
This collection of techniques is what makes theater, as a medium for conveying content, the most comprehensive and adaptable art form of all time.
For this reason, originally in Egypt and later in Greece and around the world, priests and religious elites used theater to honor their primary deities.
This same set of techniques led Father Anchieta to use theater as a tool for catechesis, converting indigenous people to the Christian cause.
Theater successfully combines other artistic activities, such as dance, music, and oratory, in a live setting, making it not only a point of convergence but also the most engaging and effective vehicle for communication.
It is no wonder that the clergy, during the Middle Ages, brought theater into churches, promoting plays that highlighted the conflict between good and evil, thus spreading Christian moral values.
Due to its unique characteristics and power to mobilize, theater has also served the purposes of authoritarian regimes on both the right and the left. In Nazi-fascist Italy and Germany; in the communist countries of the former Iron Curtain; in Cuba, China, and communist Korea, it has been used as an echo chamber for the prevailing ideology.
Just as a scalpel can be wielded for both good and ill, so too can theater be used as a tool according to the convenience and interests of those in power.
Theater, and art in general, influence citizens, who in turn shape society and reality, either transforming them for progress, expansion, and liberation, or for inertia, limitation, and compression.
In the context of education that empowers individuals to understand, interpret, and change reality, and in the context of a type of leadership that mobilizes teams—whether in the public or private sector—to overcome challenges, theater has a prominent role.
For this reason, it should be widely used both in formal and informal education, on production lines as well as in strategic planning meetings. From daycare and preschool, through elementary, middle, and higher education, theater can be a significant channel for delivering educational content. From the base of the production pyramid, where tasks are carried out, to the top, where senior management operates, theater can be a vital medium for disseminating quality content and promoting entrepreneurship.
In the interactions that occur in educational institutions, production units, and public institutions, messages and values often get diverted or arrive distorted, unclear, or altered. Mastery of dramatic techniques by everyone involved in the educational space can help unblock communication channels and clear away the debris that clogs our paths to integration.
In places where theater is used as a tool for internalizing values and principles, commitments deepen, responsibilities intensify, and more significant achievements follow, with goals consistently being surpassed.
One of theater's greatest secrets is observation. The playwright, the director, and the actors all practice it to exhaustion, as the quality of each one's performance depends on it. The characterization of any character will be all the more profound the more detailed the studies resulting from rigorous, precise observation. It is common, for example, for actors portraying more striking characters, such as mental patients or prisoners, to immerse themselves in sanitariums and detention centers so that, by closely observing the reality in focus, they can bring a more nuanced representation to the stage. When mediocre theater is produced by mediocre actors, at its core, it is often due to an absolute lack of observation skills. Without an exquisite ability to observe, theater loses substance and quality.
The same is true in science. Great discoveries are not made by scientists' intentions but by their ability to observe factors that occur outside the scope of planning and the logic laid out for their research project.
Alexander Fleming, the father of penicillin, owes this remarkable discovery to observation. In 1928, while focusing all his effort and attention on influenza research, he observed that on a culture plate of staphylococci, a mold accidentally formed with a clear zone around it. Continuing his experiments, he found that a liquid culture of the mold, which he named penicillin, prevented the growth of bacteria even when diluted hundreds of times. Because of this experiment, born of observation, Fleming won the Nobel Prize in Medicine, and penicillin has since helped save millions of human lives.
The fact that theatrical practice demands exhaustive investigations grounded in methodical observation is another strong reason why this artistic expression should be embraced by educators, managers, leaders, and entrepreneurs.
A teacher who has not developed a keen sense of observation will be, at best, a catechist, never an educator. They will produce students incapable of seeing themselves and, as a result, incapable of seeing others and the world.
A manager who does not master observation techniques deeply will never be able to systematize alternatives and opportunities, will never be able to identify threats, and will never gain the respect of their team.
The same will be true of an entrepreneur who will be operating in a hostile environment as if they were a blind amputee.
Due to this type of deficiency, if one ignores the cause-and-effect relationships, if one cannot unravel the reality around them, they will hardly be able to organize, systematize, and extract from thought the component capable of giving it materiality and effectiveness.
Antônio Carlos dos Santos
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