Dynamika metamorfozy
Dynamika metamorfozy (The Dynamic of Metamorphosis) is an artistic-research project carried out by neTTheatre / Bliski Wschód (Near East) from May 2012 to June 2014, with the participation of 18 artists from nine countries. The project ran for two years in the Grotowski Institute, in the form of regular work sessions that ended with shows.
The project was an attempt to reconstruct the skillset of the ancient actor, and in particular the techniques of embodiment and transformation. In the light of more than a decade of stage practice, and also through the prism of work on source material, metamorphosis reveals itself to us as a key element allowing us to understand the phenomenon of Greek theatre and the actor-choir-spectator relation that constitutes it.
Material for exploration was supplied by Euripides’ tragedies and the actors’ scripts they contain. Subjected to analysis from the perspective of the order in which characters appear on the stage, they show a particular regularity, which we describe as “the Rule of Three Actors”. Its function in the perception and understanding of ancient plays can be compared to the role played by Newton’s laws of motion in classical mechanics. By applying them in work on sources, and in particular in stage practice, we can perceive an exceptionally masterful system of maintaining energy, as well as maintaining its constant circulation within the organism that is the show.