Mask Performance and The Imaging Consciousness: The relationship between body and non-body in performance

• Main Author: Isaacs, Iman
• Other Authors: Fleishman, Mark
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: Eng
• Published: Faculty of Humanities 2019
• Subjects: Theatre and Performance
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30512

This study employs Jean-Paul Sartre’s theories of the ‘analogon’ and the imaging consciousness to develop the relationship between body and object in mask performance (Sartre, 1948:23). I suggest that the idea of the analogon allows for the body to be extended through, or invested into, objects to make new bodies (Shephard 2006: 150). These new bodies can possess multiple functions, when in relation to one another, one of which is to create metaphorical imagery which aids the development of story in the audience’s imaging consciousness. The study proposes that the analogon has the ability to pull the audience’s consciousness into a space that lies between the real and the fantastical, a space that can be defined as the imaginary. Furthermore, the study explores the idea that the combination of the imaging consciousness, the analogon and mask technique, through improvisational play, via negativa and transposition, can be utilized as a methodology towards developing the physical body as a mode of communication. This methodology extends the relationship between bodies and non-bodies (Shephard, 2006: 150) in mask performance, and uses this as a means of generating metaphorical images in order to make the imaginary world (which I refer to as story) come alive in the audience’s imaging consciousness