Pushing The Body To The Limit

Antonin Artaud's 'Theatre of Cruelty'


Aspects the interest me:

• Based on ritual and fantasy
• Minimises text
• Interested in Balinese Dancing - words are not essential in Balinese theatre and this interested Artaud
• Artaud was convinced that words are incapable of expressing feelings, instead he used gestures or sounds
• The theatre is not a direct copy of reality
• Artaud refers to the theatre as magical - this makes me think of the idea of magic, magicians and cards which I am actually very interested in. Linking cards to the colour red. 

Work he was interested in or has similarities to:

• Samuel Beckett - Poet, Playwright, Novelist etc. Work is a tragicomic outlook on nature coupled with black comedy
• Didier Rimbaud
• Charles Baudelaire - Poet
• Poe - Poet (Favourite Poem, 'The Happiest Day'
• Brook - Marat/Sade (most influential piece of theatre in 60's and used Artaud's theatre of cruelty)

Pushing the Body To the Limit

This video below shows how our body works and how owe can push it to the limits during physical exercise because of the extremely clever way it has been built.

http://dsc.discovery.com/video/player.html?playerId=203711706&categoryId=1425100514&lineupId=1427306027&titleId=1426309813

As you watch the street gymnasts you see how their bodies can cope with the extremely movements they are taking place and this is not only because of the way the body has been built but also because of extreme training in how to use the body.

What is more, our body works in an almost super human way when in a crisis.

The video below and above are from the same website and explore pushing the body to the limits. The video below focus's mainly on strength:

Strength - we have far more strength inside us than we know, but the only way we can use this strength is in a crisis. We learn to use our muscles together when we sleep.

The end of the video focuses on running and how we push our bodies to the limits when we run and this is part of my interests.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/human-body-pushing-limits/