Engel/Siddons

Finally, I have a chance to peruse Henry Siddons translation of Engel's Treatise on Gesture and Theatrical Action, entitled Practical Illustrations of Rhetorical Gesture and Action. The translation is "Englished" so that examples are in the theatrical vernacular of his audience. Engel's volumes were published in 1785-6, Siddons much later in 1807 (mine is a facsmile of the second, 1822 edition), indeed, just after Austin's system. Perhaps its appearance at this time was a response to Austin, for this work is very much about different expressive gestures and does not begin to approach the systematic nature of Austin's work.

The volume comprises 37 letters and a few appendices. I'll blog as I read, so first, Letter I. The imaginary correspondant objects to this project, since "every thing which is executed by prescribed rules will be formal, stiff, embarrassed, and precise." Our author counters that if you focus on the rules and are just learning you might be awkward, but that with use and exercise, good habits become "a kind of nature"; the same with awkward ones. We might as well study to excel!

Letter II discusses differences in manners among the peoples of various nations and endeavors to find a common ground, as in showing veneration, where the "natural and essential" element, the inclination of the body, is common to all his examples. Modifications are made amongst different nations, but also for the different sexes, people of different ages, and the individual qualities of the person. Engel/Siddons concludes,

The players who wishes to be accomplished in his art should not only study the passions on a broad and general basis; he should trace their operations in all their shades, in all their different varieties, as they act upon different conditions, and as they operate in various climates. (p. 11)

This is good advice for us all, certainly for me, to search for the specific within the broad range of what is true. Not so revolutionary an idea today, but a solid one. And that's my impression of the work so far: solid, a little obvious. We'll see how it develops, and especially if it gets more interesting in light of working on Austin's examples at the same time.

Gray's Elegy, verse 1

Finally, I'm able to post selection a from Gray's Elegy as annotated with gestural symbols by Gilbert Austin. Above is verse one, which I blogged on at length last week. A quick orientation is in order. When found below the text, the symbolic letters and numbers refer to the feet (advance to Right 2, retreat to Right 1 positions, i.e. right foot in front, weight on right foot, then sink back with the weight on the left on line 2). Above the text, the letters refer to the countenance (upper case at top of lines 1, 2 and 4: Ls for Listening, F for Forward, V for "eyes bent on Vacancy") and to the arms and hands (mostly lower case, though B means both arms and R means at rest). So the first gesture complex, on "the curfew tolls" indicates that you step forward onto the right foot, listening (looking in the direction of the sound, then placing your ears towards it) with the arms apart, hands vertical (v), right arm elevated and open on the diagonal (eq), left arm a little lower, horizontal, and stretched out to the left (hx), for Ls veq-vhx while aR2. Here is Austin's own drawing of "Listening" (figure 103) and his description:

"Listening, in order to obtain the surest and most various information, first presents the quick and comprehensive glance of the eye towards the apparent direction of the sounds, if nothing is seen, the ear presents itself towards the point of expectation, and the eye is bent on vacancy: but all this passes in a moment. The hand and are are held vertical extended. If the sound proceed from different quarters at the same time, both arms are held up, and the head alternately changes from one side to the other, with a rapidity governed by the nature of the sound; if it be alarming, with trepidation; if pleasing, with gentle motion. The figure is listening fear." (p. 488) [sorry about the noisy left side of the image; I'm working on that!]

The listening indicated in the Elegy is a little different, with the right arm perhaps even higher and the weight on the right foot in front, more enjoying than the pulling back this image seems to suggest. But the shape is there, and clearly those first three notations make for one complex of whole-body listening, weight moving forward towards the sound, arms receiving and delineating it, eye looking and then inclined.

The Vertical and the Horizontal

Today climbing out of the subway I suddenly thought about how a minister I once worked for described the goal of liturgy: to help an individual balance and develop the experience of the vertical plane (relationship with God or something spiritual) and the horizontal plane (relationship with ourselves and the world). I thought of how that vertical/horizontal dynamic maps onto the disposition of the arms and the placement of acting objects in a baroque style, how there is a physical sense to high and low, close and far and how the performer does work to integrate and relate these areas. It helped that I was climbing several flights of stairs out of the subway at the time, moving my own body through a vertical space many times taller than it is, and thinking too about how often and how far I move around on the vertical plane, from deep underground to shooting up in an elevator to the 29th floor of a tall office building, or on the horizontal plane, by walking or hopping on the subway and traversing quite the area in the course of a day. The geography of the 21st century city-dweller is definitely one that negotiates and hopefully balances these fundamental planes.

So I opened my notes and transcription of Austin's gestures for the exerpt from Gray's Elegy, which I have been carrying around with me for some time. And looking at the first verse, I found the vertical and the horizontal neatly bookended. The text is as follows:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way
And leaves the world to darkness, and to me.

The first line has two gestural complexes, "listening" (on "The curfew tolls", which includes a gesture of the head and eyes, the arms spread wife and the body moving forward in space), and one we might call "falling" on the second half of the line, with a prepatory ascent of the hands up the body's central axis, the arms marking "knell" at the beginning, parting at the high point, and then descending through "day".

The second two lines take place gesturally almost entirely on the horizontal plane, Austin's middle area; the gaze returns forward and the right hand traces the lowing herd over to the far right, then the left hand follows the ploughman going home, off to the left. At the end of the line, on "weary", the hands raise a little, more I think to prepare for the next line than to depict his state, though that could come into it.

The final line again invokes the vertical axis, the eye intent on vacancy at "leaves" and both hands noting "the world" in an elevated position and descending to rest by "me."

In fact, to trace the track of the fingertips of someone performing this would more or less make a cross, so firmly does it adhere to the vertical (the dying day), the horizontal (the actions of the world) and again the vertical (darkness falling, the world left to the narrator for his musings). And by emphasizing the dying fall, the first stanza already prepares us formally for the the next time both hands will come to rest, when at the end of the fourth stanza the performer points out the graves of the place's forebearers.

I shall try to get some of these pages scanned in for next week so I can post what the gestural notation actually looks like.

Like a bird...

More Austin today. I can't believe I missed this analogy up until now: Austin compares the styles or levels of gesture (epic, rhetorical and colloquial) to the flight of various birds (p. 460). He says,

The transition from gesture to gesture with the arms long displayed and seldom falling to rest, is analogous to the soaring and graceful flight of certain greater birds, whose extended wings do not close for a considerable time, though they vary their movements, and change their rapidity. The flight of the hawk, and the soaring of the eagle, whose motions are both powerful and swift, and magnificently sustained, and boldly terminated, present the image of high tragic and epic gesture; which takes place, when the actor is engaged in grand and terrific scenes, or when he recites the sublime poetry of lyric odes. The sailing and fine variety of motion, with the changing lustre of the great seafowl, is the gesture of recitation in magnificent and beautiful descriptions of nature. The orator seems to fly on the wings of the dove, "rapid, strong, and light." For a time he ascends in towering elevation, but does not long hover among the clouds, he rather descends to adorn the more interesting domestic scene. The colloquial gesture in all its variety will find illustration among the different domestic birds. Some using their wings gracefully, but rarely, some seldom using them at all, and some distinguished by frequent resting after short, and rapid flight, which seems to be resorted to only as the most direct and speedy way by which they can reach their object, and is seemingly divested of all idea of pleasure or grace in the action.

Eagle, hawk, gull, dove, budgie. I love it.

Lots of interesting news on the gesture front here. Last night I went over to my new friend Christian's house to watch some of Peter Sellars' Theodora, which is most interesting and I'm sure I'll be writing about it more, since he was kind enough to loan me the VHS tape for a while. And having gotten to the very last chapter of Austin I'll be ploughing once more into the examples. I'm thinking of tackling J.J. Engel's Ideen zu einer Mimik next, a project that is long overdue. I will probably read it in the English version by Henry Siddons, but will have to do it on site in a library so it might take a while. But that's no reason not to start!

The Elocution Guy

I don't have much to report on my Chironomia project right now--the last few days I haven't been carrying around the book, for one reason or another, and various other commitments have been eating up my work time. But I did want to share this cool link to the Elocution Guy, created by Stephen D. Krause out of gesture images from the Austin book. Thank you, Dr. Krause!