Disciplines of the Text/Sites of Performance

Abstract

What is in fact curious about all these gestures, these angular and abruptly abandoned attitudes, these syncopated modulationsformed at the back of the throat, these musical phrases that break off short, theseflights of elytra, these rustlings of branches, these sounds of hollow drums, these robot squeakings, these dances of animated manikins, is this: that through the labyrinth of theirgestures, attitudes, and sudden cries, through the gyrations and turns which leave no portion of the stage space unutilized, the sense of a new physical language, based upon signs and no longer upon words, is liberated. These actors, with theirgeometric robes seem to be animated hieroglyphs.