Saumya Liyanage

Body Mind Dilemmas in Acting: a Study of East West Traditions Saumya Liyanage

Over the last century or so, body-mind assumptions in acting have been heavily discussed within various discourses of actor training systems. These body- mind assumptions have been embodied and understood as a split mainly within Euro-American pedagogies. This work explores the metaphisics of body-mind in Stanislavski system and Meyerhold's biomechanics. In contrast to this, author tries to bring forward the discussion of body-mind as "cultivation" through pragmatic approaches of Phillip Zarrilli and Tadashi Suzuki. These actor training systems stem from Asian corporeal arts and philosophies. Further it offers two exclusive interviews on actor training by Phillip Zarrilli and Adil Hussain. This study is a valuable discussion which focuses the important aspects of acting theory that could be beneficial for the students and teachers who are willing to explore the philosophies behind the craft of acting.