Books about Grotowski from Amazon.com

A Vintage Original

"The actor will do, in public, what is considered impossible." When the renowned Polish director Jerzy Grotowski began his 1967 American workshop with these words, his students were stunned. But within four weeks they themselves had experienced the "impossible."

In An Acrobat of the Heart, teacher-director-playwright Stephen Wangh reveals how Jerzy Grotowski's physical exercises can open a pathway to the actor's inner creativity. Drawing on Grotowski's insights and on the work of Stanislavski, Uta Hagen, and others, Wangh bridges the gap between rigorous physical training and practical scene and character technique. Wangh's students give candid descriptions of their struggles and breakthroughs, demonstrating how to transform these remarkable lessons into a personal journey of artistic growth. Courageous and compelling, An Acrobat of the Heart is an invaluable resource for actors, directors, and teachers alike..
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In 1968, Jerzy Grotowski published his groundbreaking Towards a Poor Theatre, a record of the theatrical investigations conducted at his experimental theater in Poland. This classic work on acting and performance is now available once again. In his preface to the original edition, Peter Brook wrote: "Grotowski is unique. Why? Because no one else in the world, to my knowledge no one since Stanislavski, has investigated the nature of acting, its phenomenon, its meaning, the nature and science of its mental-physical-emotional processes as deeply as Grotowski." More recently, Richard Schechner has called Grotowski "one of the four great directors of Western theater." Jerzy Grotowski was born in Poland in 1933. In 1982 he moved to the United States and worked at the University of California. He later moved to Italy, where he continued his unique and intense theatrical investigation. He died in 1999..
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(Excerpt)
Grotowski knows that to learn something means to conquer it in practice One must learn through "doing" and not through memorization of ideas and theories . . . the axis of this text is a method, or better yet a practice, finally central to the work of Stanislavski, and later developed by Grotowski: physical actions.

Grotowski is inheritor of the mantle of Stanislavski, renowned and revered for his radical innovation as a director, and for his seminal manifesto Towards a Poor Theatre.

At Work With Grotowski onPhysical Actions by Thomas Richards, Grotowski's long-time collaborator, is the first available statement in English of Grotowski's current working practices and theoretical position in over twenty years.

This is Thomas Richards' inside account of his decade-long exclusive collaboration with one of the central figures of 20th-century theatre. It reviews in jargon-free terms Grotowski's developments since the time of Towards a Poor Theatre.

With the preface and concluding chapter by Grotowski himself, At Work With Grotowski is not only a portrait of the master at work, but also Grotowski's personal testimony to a life spent on the leading edge of the theatre world.

At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions will take its rightful place alongside the dozen or so seminal theatre books of this century. Richards' account will prove a unique resource for actors, students, and anyone seriously interested in the best that the theatre has to offer..
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Systems of Rehearsal is the first systematic appraisal of the three principal paradigms in which virtually all theatre work is conducted today - those developed by Stanislavsky, Brecht and Grotowski. The author compares each system ot the work of the contemporary director who, says Mitter, is the Great Imitator of each of them: Peter Brook. The result is the most comprehensive introduction to modern theatre available..
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This highly acclaimed volume is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of Jerzy Grotowski's long and multi-faceted career. With interest in Grotowski increasing after his sad death in 1999, this updated volume is a timely and welcome edition. Edited by the two leading experts on Grotowski, this unique and fantastically comprehensive sourcebook features: *Essays from all the key performance theorists to have worked with Grotowski, including Eugenio Barba, Peter Brook, Jan Kott, Eric Bentley, Harold Clurman, and Charles Marowitz *Writings which trace every phase of Grotowski's career from his 'theatre of production' to 'objective drama' and 'art as vehicle' *An amazing collection of Grtowski's own writings, plus an interview with his closest collaborator and 'heir' Thomas Richards *A vast range of stunning photographic documentation of Grotowski and his followers in action *An historical-critical study of Grotowski by Richard Schechner This is a must-buy essential volume for anyone interested in Grotowski's life and work..
Price: $42.32 [Notify me when price goes down.]

El teatro puede existir sin vestuario o escenario, sin musica, sin luces y aun sin texto. El unico elemento sin el cual el teatro no puede existir, es el actor. Grotowski propone despojarse de todo elemento superfluo y concentrar la esencia del arte teatral en el actor, hacer de su cuerpo la expresion maxima y definida de este teatro..
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Victor Turner altered the way ritual is viewed, by emphasizing its role as an agent of social change rather than an agent for conserving the status quo. This book reconsiders and clarifies Turner's theory of ritual in response to its frequent misinterpretation and then demonstrates its usefulness for interpreting such phenomena as ritual possession in a politically militant African-American Pentecostal congregation and the countercultural theatrical experiments of Jerzy Grotowski's Polish Laboratory Theater..
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