Tacit Knowing in Acting

The goal of the project Tacit Knowing in Acting is the articulation of the epistemological features of skill transfer in acting education, an area which has not as yet been the subject of study. It is a philosophical study in theater, not a sociological or psychological study about theater. For that reason it can only be carried out in close collaboration with theater makers. Concretely the project explores skill formation in acting on the basis of documenting the instruction of Prof. Artak Grigorjan of Vienna`s Max Reinhardt Seminar. The relationship between Prof. Grigorjan and his students will be considered as a variation on the theme master-apprentice in the context of the project. The project would initiate a wholly new discussion of acting as a species of professional knowledge, which would then be available to form the basis of discussions of professional competence in the theater as such. It continues a series of investigations into practice begun by Tore Nordenstam and Kjell S. Johannessen at the University of Bergen and continued in the investigations of skill and professional knowledge by Bo Göranzon and Ingela Josefson in Stockholm Bo Göranzon. Swedish research into skill and technology has been intensely involved with Stockholm`s Royal Dramatic Theater since 1985 when Prof. Göranzon founded the Dialogue Seminar there. The project will begin with a systematic overview of the objective environment in which instruction at the Reinhardt Seminar takes place: the organization of the study of acting, the structure of the department, the space available for rehearsals, their length etc. As is typical of Swedish studies into professional skill, the principal methods involved in the reconstruction of the practices and procedures involved in skill formation in acting are dialogue and participant observation. Participant observation here means that the project worker will be observing Prof. Grigorjan`s instruction for two full years. That observation will be in aid of developing a dialogue about skill in acting with both Prof. Grigorjan and his students. The dialogue will be structured around various forms of interviews: problem-centered interviews, narrative interviews and group discussions. At the close of the project the "subjects of the investigation" themselves will have produced and discussed a repertoire of examples that have a claim to paradigmatic status by virtue of their having been discussed critically by both practitioners and the organizers of the project. These will be summarized in a monograph.

The project issued in a book publication co-authored by Allan Janik, Artak Grigorjan and Karin Gasser that should serve as a reference work for students and teachers of acting as well as anyone generally interested in the question of what budding actors must learn to develop into genuine theater artists. The study, which is to be published in both English and German versions, is tentatively titled Tacit Knowledge on the Stage and is divided into six sections with a preface. The first section is an introduction in the form of a provocative statement about what theater at its best should be, i.e., a dramatic presentation capable of inducing catharsis in the audience. This statement of the goal of theatrical production forms the background to a class by class documentation of Artak Grigorjan`s introductory course in working in an ensemble at Vienna`s Max Reinhardt Seminar. The documentation aims at illuminating what professional actors must do as they learn to form judgments together about playing a role emphasizing the interplay between exercises and instruction, discussion and rehearsal in that process. This is preceded by a collection of `sermons` drawn from the course in which Artak Grigorjan cajoles, encourages, and inspires his students to take up the challenge that acting on the stage professionally presents them, which means to develop art out of the skills they are learning à la Stanislavski, i.e., on the basis of `ethics and discipline`. A third chapter presents an ideal type or model the professional actor at work based upon some twenty five interviews with successful actors. It documents how they conceive the problem of creating a role on the basis of their own statements, largely metaphorical, about what they must do to concentrate life on the stage. The vividness, concreteness and dazzling quality of their metaphors underscores what it is to exercise skills that admit neither of formulation in terms of formal rules nor are matters of consensus. In short, they reveal a great deal about the `texture` of actors` work and what it is that actors must know. A fourth chapter is comprised of reflections on the Stanislavski approach to acting as practiced by Artak Grigorjan from the perspective of the philosophy of practice. It treats of a number of conceptual issues involved in acting education, identifying and commenting upon Artak Grigorjan`s approach to acting education from the perspective of practical epistemology, e.g. distinguishing between acting and pretence or distinguishing the various senses of concentration involved in acting. There is a selected bibliography of literature relevant to the themes mentioned above. The elements that constitute this study make no claim on completeness nor can they be taken as the last word on the subject; rather they should serve to stimulate further interest in, debate about and, above all reflection upon the thorny issue of what it is that actors know. It is thus a study of theater pedagogy and theater aesthetics as well as a contribution to understanding professional knowledge in the arts.