Radical Sensing and Performer Training

This exciting new book explores the pioneering radical sensing work of Elsa Gindler (18851961) and the practices of five women inspired by her. It re-considers a range of trajectories of influence across the established canons of twentieth-century performer training practices and challenges conventions of performer training historiography. Moving from the early twentiethcentury Physical Culture movement through Modern and Postmodern dance training in Europe and North America to contemporary devised theatre in the UK, this is the first booklength study of Gindlers pedagogy in relation to performance. It allows trainers, arts practitioners, theatre, dance and art historians, and students to understand previously untold stories in performance, Somatics and philosophies of knowledge. Bringing Gindlers unique practice into dialogue with philosophies drawn from pragmatism and phenomenology, the book explores concepts of concentration and Gelassenheit, situation, gestalts of breathing, negative epistemology and phronesis, to create a picture of Elsa Gindlers work as situated, context specific and intersubjective. It also explores how feminist ways of knowing and being are embedded in the practices themselves. Drawing on the authors 30 years of experience of training in work inspired by Elsa Gindler, this book allows theories and practices to converse and merge to build a rich and multidimensional perspective of performer training. Woven throughout are practical experiments for the reader to try, alongside analyses of performances and previously unpublished workshop material and notes. Beyond performance, this book locates Gindlers work within wider contexts of social and ecological crises and suggests that this radical sensing practice can be used as a quiet way to make a difference in the world.