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The Six Questions:
Acting Technique for Dance Performance
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| While an undergraduate in a liberal arts college in the late 1970s, I was required to take a rigorous course of modern dance as part of my training as an actor. It was (and still is) common in theater arts programs to conceive of the actor in a whole body sense in which developing physical qualities like control, flexibility and musicality are important steps to the full realization of the artist. As Daniel Nagrin points out in the introduction to The Six Questions: Acting Technique for Dance Performance, the inverse is not true for the training of dancers, in the studio or in a liberal arts environment. Dancers rarely receive actor training of any kind. Indeed, Nagrin argues that many dancers are actively discouraged from pursuing the kind of emotional preparation and role study that he advocates. Certainly testimony like Gelsey Kirkland’s Dancing on My Grave supports this notion—George Balanchine derided his dancers for asking questions about their “characters” or about the “meaning” of a dance while preparing a ballet. |
 Photo of Daniel Nagrin, courtesy of the Dance Collection, New York Public Library. |
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Through my years as a dance critic I’ve watched many dancers give breathtakingly difficult technical performances without taking my breath away at all. How can a performer be so good, and yet so emotionally vacant—and therefore so ultimately dissatisfying? It’s a large question, and one that needs to be asked of actors and singers also. What is the essence of performance? Technique? Feeling? Some magical mix of the two? All this is by way of introducing the deeply felt theory and writing which endows Nagrin’s The Six Questions with a lovely mix of lyricism and wisdom. I imagine I was asked to review this book because of my work as a dance historian and critic, but I found my most active response to the book to be located in my work as a singer and actor. Nagrin writes: “At the heart of why we dancers do all that we do is an experience to which we all hunger to return if we are to continue. These are the times in classes, rehearsals and best of all in performance when we are dancing with power, authority and the uninhibited outpouring of all that we are. This free flow of the body is the expression of our feelings, our intellect, our inner vision, our beliefs—our totality. Having a solid dance technique paves the road to this place but it is only a beginning. Few experiences are so harrowing as performing when this state of being is lacking and when we try to appear to be deeply involved. We are forced to put on a show of immersion in the dance when in reality we are outside watching ourselves: a cold place to be.” It’s the fear of finding themselves in that “cold place” that will interest dancers in this fine book. Divided into two sections titled “The Theory” and “The Workbook,” Nagrin outlines a course of study that brings well-established acting exercises to bear on how a dancer approaches a role. In the first half, Nagrin offers his own practical experience as the point of departure. His anecdotes about dancing with such monumental moderns as Martha Graham and Sophie Maslow pale only to his references to having studied with some of the great acting teachers of the American stage, including Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner and Joseph Chaikin. But I save my real awe for Nagrin’s analysis of Helen Becker Tamiris. Tamiris (as she was known) is one of the leading figures of the American modern dance (along with Graham and Doris Humphrey), a key figure in the development of the modern aesthetic and later a successful Broadway choreographer. Nagrin danced with and was married to Tamiris. He accredits her with helping him “take down the wall between acting and dancing” by introducing him to Constantin Stanislavski’s acting system—the source for most of Nagrin’s exercises and the key to his concept of “the six questions.” Stanislavski is of course the great Russian director and teacher who codified a naturalistic system in which the actor uses his own experience to lend emotional truth to the role he is playing. During the 1930s and 1940s, Stanislavski’s system was brought to the United States by Stella Adler, adapted by the Group Theatre, and then re-invented by Lee Strasberg at the Actor’s Studio and eventually re-labeled the “method.” Nagrin uses the whole complex of Stanislavskian language and exercises to support his theory, from his discussion of the “spine” of a dance to his version of the “Magic If.” But what are the six questions? In Nagrin’s words: “The entire process can actually be encapsulated in one sentence: Who (or what) is doing what to whom (or what) and where, in what context and under what difficulties and why? It may appear ridiculous but this one sentence is what most of this book is about.” Nagrin then goes on to illustrate how the dancer can look for these questions (and their answers) in the rehearsal process. For example, he asks: “Who or what is dancing? This question is key to the entire process. All dancers, be they principals or one of the ensemble, need to shape their internal life around the core of a specific identity within the context of a specific image.” This is an exercise that many dancers will find unnecessary, perhaps, especially those schooled in non-narrative modes where story and character are never discussed on any level. But Nagrin argues that these questions have relevance even for, in his words, performers doing “abstract” dances. Though my interest as a dance patron is overwhelmingly in non-narrative choreography, I’m inclined to agree with Nagrin’s thesis that the “best artists in that genre gain their strength from involvement with a poetic use of specific images.” There are some limits to Nagrin’s approach. One is certainly the dated quality of the acting theory that underscores his exercises. Realistic acting technique has evolved and expanded considerably since the 1930s, incorporating attitudes, styles and language from the post-war stage through the advent of performance art. Stanislavski’s system is by no means lost to us (indeed, many might argue that most contemporary film actors are entombed by it), but it is not taught in as literal a fashion in theatre programs today as Nagrin puts forth in The Six Questions. Still, Nagrin seems to be aware of this potential red flag. He points out in his introduction that he is not attempting to “present a general theory of dance performance that will apply to all for all time,” adding in his characteristically knowing voice, “I may believe fiercely but I am sure of nothing” (his italics). I’m nearly two generations younger than Nagrin, so I haven’t reached his state of grace and wisdom yet and am therefore willing to say that I am sure of a couple of things, including the fact that this is a wonderful book full of valuable tools and insight. The dance community should be pleased to have it. |
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