TTRP Training: Its Applicability to the Philippine Setting
The system of theater training at TTRP juxtaposes three years of skills training involving Acting, Performance, Voice, Speech, Movement, Tai Chi and Traditional Theatre (Bharatanatyam, Beijing Opera, Wayangwong and Noh). It also theoretically exposes student-actors through lectures, tutorials and seminars in the Humanities, Theatre History and Cultural Studies and workshops in European theater traditions, as well as creative work via the Performance Making Projects. In the final year, the students'skills will be judged in an open platform through the public theatre productions that are open to general audience.
What makes TTRP unique among other theater training schools in the world is the concept of incorporating traditional theater training in contemporary theater making. It seeks to synthesize traditional and contemporary training systems, in the belief that training in traditional forms of theatre is still relevant to contemporary theatre.
The program tries to forge a new, "third way" to actor-training, drawing upon both the empirical rigor of psychological realism (that of the Stanislavski method) and the intuitive spontaneity of psychophysical or "in-body" approaches to acting and performance (that of working on the embodied, intuitive impulses of the actor).
I have been training in the TTRP pedagogy over the past two years and four months. Those past rigorous months of training have created in me an embodied capacity; a wide and varied set of resources including skills, techniques, perspectives and theories from which I can draw upon for my future work.
Likewise, those experiences have enriched in me four focal points, as to how I can apply my training to the Philippine contemporary setting.
Below are the four points that I want to highlight in this paper:
1. Intercultural theater making
At the TTRP, students are trained in the intercultural theater training. It is a system of training that puts actors in constant and dynamic interaction and collaboration across cultural boundaries. It gives the actors a new experience of working in theater, thereby, activating in him/her a sensitivity and an awareness that enables intercultural theatre work.
It is my objective to bring another approach to theater making which is intercultural in nature. With Philippines' diverse cultures, it would be interesting to create bodies of work that will show the interplay among the different cultural traditions. This is not something new to contemporary theater in the country, but it is something that I want to bring a deeper and different focus to. I envision being able to conduct works in line with intercultural cooperation and collaboration among artists from different backgrounds.
2. Multilingual theater training
The multilingual nature of theatre training enables the possibility of a theater that communicates to audience who do not speak the performed language. It hones the actors' skills of communication in performance by finding ways of conveying meaning other than through words.
Philippines is a very interesting place for multi-lingual theatre making. Having a diverse range of ethno-linguistic groups, it would be interesting to introduce a form that weaves different dialects or languages in one theater piece for example - a unity in diversity. My desired goal is to forge a kind of theater that embraces a multilingual nature with one intention at hand.
3. Performance body
The body is central to the training in the program. The training focuses on using the actors' physical body as an instrument that could express and embody a variety of experiences. Traditional theaters in Asia are rooted in their relationship to music, dance, drama and storytelling. These are the faculties that a contemporary actor must embody in a contemporary setting.
It may sound very ambitious now, but I hope to create a systematic training method for actors drawing inspiration from the different Asian traditional art systems. I am hoping to be able to find a new language in training the actor's body using traditional training, and to be able to use it in the contemporary theater making.
For example: I hope to work in discovering and or uncovering performance techniques or acting styles being used in traditional theaters that could be of great use to contemporary actors: the symmetrical and sculptural postures, expressive facial and hand gestures and energetic rhythm of Bharatanatyam; the stylized make up, expressive eyes, "high-toned"singing and speaking and physical gestures of Beijing Opera; the inner fluidity of body movements, the softness and gentleness of physical actions and use of voice in Wayangwong; the groundedness and stillness, minimalistic performance style and rhythm of Noh.
This might take me into a long process of discovering, selecting, rejecting and shaping along the course of my future work. What I am proposing here is to create a repository of body experiences from which actors can draw upon during their work.
4. Awakening local performance tradition in Philippines
The idea of performance tradition has been one of my core interests. What has emerged is the idea that understanding tradition is needed to understand contemporary performance. What we now call as contemporary performance is what has evolved from what we deemed traditional. There is an interplay and a relationship between the two.
Having been exposed to a variety of Asian traditional cultures (be it in actual physical and vocal training or in lectures), what has emerged from me as an artist from Mindanao is the sense of questioning where are the performance traditions now in my country. It would be an interesting thing to note that Philippines has a long recorded history, but we do not have a well-developed performance tradition that has continued to the present.
As part of my future plans, I see myself researching performance traditions in the country that could be of use to contemporary actors. It will form part of the systematic training that will be drawn across cultures in Asia. I believe that there is a common and shared locus among Asian traditional forms; that it is focused on the body, voice and movement capacity of the actor.
In conclusion, it would be an interesting and exciting attempt to apply my TTRP training to the Philippine contemporary theater scene. It would seem difficult to theorize right now what my training would lead to in my own country. What I have proposed here are concepts that could take years to realise through a series of tests and trials involving the theatre people of the Philippines, but this will be the basis of my future work.
by Felimon Blanco
Artistic Director, Tambul Dance and Theater Ensemble
Co-director, Kumbingan Ensemble
Founding Chairman, Tambulig Arts Council