The Gesture and the Body: Rethinking Some of the Basic Approaches to Acting in the Historical Avant-Garde

This paper examines some of the basic creative and receptive principles formulated by the historical theatrical avant-garde regarding gesturality and the physical behaviour of actors. It considers the relationship between the historical establishment of the directing profession and the development of interest in gesture, as well as the relationship between gesture and theatrical performance in today’s media reality. The aim, given the limited length of the article, is to outline the tendency to think of gesture and the body in ready-made formulae, distorted by the multimedia convergence that both theatre production and theatre pedagogy suffer from. A survey of theatrical practices of the past allows us to consider the purity of the actor’s performance as a function of theatrical direction and performance as a complete artistic fact.