Ingemar Lindh
Stepping Stones
Translated from Italian by Benno Plassmann and Marlene
Schranz with the assistance of Magdalena Pietruska, Edited and
introduced by Frank Camilleri. Icarus Publishing Enterprise,
Holstebro - Malta - Wroclaw, 2010, pp.260
Stepping Stones is the book of a
practitioner. It documents the work of a laboratory-based practice
that investigated the principles of collective improvisation as a
performance practice. Though the dynamics and mechanisms of
collective work and improvisation have been amply researched in
training and composition contexts, not so can be said in the
context of performance. Ingemar Lindh's research, which announces a
resistance to choreography, fixed scores, and directorial montage,
has significant implications for the practice and theory of
performance in a post-dramatic age.
Stepping Stones is, to quote Lindh
himself, 'a book not written but spoken' in the sense that it is a
collection of transcripts and writings by and about Lindh. The
first two chapters are based on a transcript of a workshop held in
Porsgrunn (Norway) in 1981. In these chapters Lindh's unique work
on performer process (including the adaptation of isometric
training for actors) is expounded in the context of his views on
theatre. Chapter 3 is made up of two letters to a friend, the first
detailing Lindh's artistic biography and the second commenting on
the knowledge acquired in the process. Chapter 4 is an interview
with Lindh by Paolo Martini with a focus on the ethics of his
aesthetics. Chapter 5 is a chronology by Magdalena Pietruska of the
Institute för Scenkonst's twenty-five years of operation under the
direction of Lindh.
Photographs by Maurizio Buscarino and Stefano Lanzardo
provide visual documentation of the history and research of Lindh's
Institutet för Scenkonst. The book also contains an
introductory chapter by Frank Camilleri which places Lindh's work
within a historical context as well as features a glossary of
terms, names, and performances. Stepping Stones was first
published in Italy in 1998. A Swedish edition appeared in
2003.
CONTENTS
Preface to the Italian edition - Acknowledgements - Introduction
to the English edition by Frank Camilleri - 1. In Search of
Research - Introduction: A Hypothesis - The Actor: Poetry and
Technique - 2. Catching the Moment of Eternity - Training -
Frescoes - Immobility - The Actor - Incarnation - Alternation -
Collective Improvisation - Stepping Stones - 3. 'Dear Friend...' -
First Letter to Bengt Häger - Second Letter to Bengt Häger - 4. The
Transparent Man - An Interview with Ingemar Lindh by Paolo Martini
- 5. Institut för Scenkonst - AChronology by Magdalena Pietruska -
1971-1996: Twenty-Five Years of Research, Pedagogy, Performances -
Post Scriptum - Munkängen 1998-2001 - Index of Performances - Index
of Photographs - Glossary of Terms by Frank Camilleri - Index
The Author Ingemar Lindh
(1945-97) studied with the founder of Corporeal Mime Étienne
Decroux in Paris (1966-68). Together with Yves Lebreton and other
former students of Decroux, he founded the mime troupe Studio 2 in
1969 based at Odin Teatret in Holstebro. In 1971 Lindh founded his
own theatre laboratory in Sweden, the Institutet för Scenkonst
(Institute for Scenic Art) which researched the principles of
collective improvisation conceived as performance. In 1984 the
Institutet moved to Pontremoli (Italy) where they operated until
1996. Lindh died suddenly in Malta in June 1997 during a break in a
work session.
