Known principally as a teacher rather than as a performer or director, even though his very early career included directing and teaching, Jacques Lecoq has influenced many artists specialising in comic and physically exaggerated styles of performance. His reputation has spread throughout the world mostly through collaborators such as Dario Fo and his students rather than through his theories, for he was a reluctant author. His students include Ariane Mnouchkine from France, Julie Taymor from the USA, and in Great Britain Steven Berkoff and founder members of Théâtre de Complicité, who met at Lecoq’s Paris school, the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. He founded this in 1956 in a former boxing hall, and the school became the hub for his training programmes. It is still operative today under the command of his Scottish wife, Fay Lecoq. Lecoq’s and the school’s educational programme focuses on encouraging performers to work with simplicity and to use their bodies as the primary source of expression. In broad terms, it begins with finding a state of neutrality through the neutral mask, progressing to the exploration of rhythm and movement in space, before the practical study of popular theatre genres such as Greek tragedy, melodrama, mime, clowning, commedia dell’arte and buffoonery, often using choral work and masks. All creativity centres on the actor’s ability to play. Lecoq also led a separate wing of the school, the Laboratoire d’Étude du Mouvement, which focuses on scenography, space and the visual dynamics of performance. Although he published his views on performing and performance, his impact has been felt most keenly through the continuing work of his many students, who have become directors and creators of performance in their own right. From the RCTP

Image:  © Scott Heist