The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre (English translation of Le Corps Poétique) is Jacques Lecoq’s account of his pedagogy: a physical, mime-rooted approach to actor training built around observation of movement, gesture, and the “neutral mask.” Lecoq (1921–1999) was a French movement teacher and founder of the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, whose alumni shaped much of contemporary physical theatre, clown, and devised performance.
Some quotes so far:
“Through teaching I have discovered that the body knows things about which the mind is ignorant.” (53)
“The laws of movement have to be under-stood on the basis of the human body in motion: balance, imbalance, opposition, alternation, compensation, action and reaction. These laws may all be discovered in the body of a spectator as well as in that of the actor. The spectator knows perfectly well when there is harmony or disharmony in a scene.” (65)
“Novelty is not, in itself, indispensable. Probing the depths of one strand leads to the discovery that everything is contained within it. You can immerse your life in a drop of water and see the whole world!” (67)
“Play may be very close to replay or may distance itself through the most daring theatrical transposition, but it must never lose sight of the root anchoring it to reality.” (74)
“What happens when you find yourself confronted with a place that you think you are discovering for the first time?” (75)