How Does Grotowski Relate To Theatre

Within this Essay, I will be focusing on the work of Jerzy Grotowski, and his approach to Theatre, giving my opinion on how his training compares to others. I will then look to more contemporary artists, mainly Pina Bausch, and Frantic assembly to show how Grotowski’s work is still relevant in today’s theatre. This man was one of the most influential practitioners for the Physical Theatre movement. One of his most prominent set of techniques is ‘the Plastiques’, these were developed by Grotowski, where the actor must train the body, as a pianist does to a piano. They start with a set movement (i.e. Flick of the wrist), and from here, they start to deviate from that movement to see what moments of impulse they gather, and what it might evoke.

In 1973, she became the choreographer at Tanztheater Wuppertal. From here on in, she merged her old classic ballet training into a more diverse performance, where her artists would use: dance, movement, speech, costume and set.

From the above quote, you can sense the amount of work she produced, and as she once said, she felt like everyone she did was her last. She felt exhausted as after dress rehearsals, she would often re-arrange the whole piece, as she was never truly satisfied with her work. This shows her strive for impulse, and spontaneity, keeping her work so raw and fresh, critics and audiences alike saw her as a pioneer in Dance

Her ‘key interest in human existence’ is also another element which both practitioners shared. With Grotowski ensuring within his training you use everything biologically possible to create visual work, from contact with others (visually and physically), engaging in different freezes/ sharp, set movements and finding the moment of impulse to achieve. Similarities are seen within Pina’s work, where she incorporates all the theatre traits into her own original pieces, as well as keeping all her movements so human and true, as seen in her world-famous piece ‘Café Muller’. You can clearly see the intensity shared between the two, how they work their actors to exhaustion to create something so truthful, the audience sees the purity and heart that is their