A Korean Approach to Actor Training

A Korean Approach to Actor Training develops a vital, intercultural method of performer training, introducing Korean and more broadly East Asian discourses into contemporary training and acting practice.

This volume examines the psychophysical nature of a performer?s creative process, applying Dahnhak, a form of Korean meditation, and its central principle of ki-energy, to the processes and dramaturgies of acting. A practitioner as well as a scholar, Jeungsook Yoo draws upon her own experiences of training and performing, addressing productions including Bald Soprano (2004), Water Station (2004) and Playing ?The Maids? (2013?2015).

A significant contribution to contemporary acting theory, A Korean Approach to Actor Training provides a fresh outlook on performer training which will be invaluable to scholars and practitioners alike.

Chapter 1: Introduction – Toward Gained Nature in Artificiality

1. An Intercultural and Psychophysical Approach to Acting and Actor Training
2. Meditation and Acting as a Psychophysical ‘Technique’
3. Tao, Te and Kungfu

Chapter 2: Dahnhak Meditation – Recovering Sensitivity Toward Mastery

1. Introduction to Dahnhak

Dahnhak

Ki in Dahnhak

Three Principles

Three Methods

Dahnhak Practice

2. Three Methods Practice

Chapter 3: The Bald Soprano – Forming an Active-Passive Relationship

1. Introduction
2. From Paper to Time and Space – The Nature of Acting

Acting – A Psychophysical Activity

Words – Psychophysical Vibration

3. Forming an Active-Passive Relationship to a Psychophysical Score

A Process of Creating a Score

Space as a Channel – Resonance

Integration

Chapter 4: The Water Station – Moving Ki in Inner and Outer Space

1. Introduction
2. A Starting Point of Acting – A Way of Appreciation
3. The ‘Visible’ and the ‘Invisible’
4. A Design of Awareness and Ki – Moving Ki in Time and Space

Scene 1 GIRL

Scene 2 TWO MEN

Scene 3 WOMAN WITH A PRASOL

Scene 9 THE GIRL

5. Autonomy of the Ki-Flow

Chapter 5: Playing ‘the Maids’ – Tuning Emotional Ki

1. Introduction
2. The Korean Imagination – Han and Salpuri Dance

Salpuri Dance – Embodiment of Han

Han – The Aesthetics of Fermentation

3. Emotion as Ki

Emotion in the Context of Its Embodiment

Tunable Elements of Emotional Ki

4. Tuning the Characteristics of Emotional Ki

‘I Can Not’

‘Release of Han Dance (Salpuri) and Vocal Duet’

5. A Character’s Emotion and an Actor’s Emotion

Chapter 6: Conclusion – A Theory of Sympathy

Bibliography

Jeungsook Yoo was recently Head of the World Performance course at East 15 Acting School (UK). She currently teaches at Korea National University of the Arts and Soongsil University (Korea). She holds a PhD from the University of Exeter (UK). She is co-founder with Sunhee Kim of Theatre P'yut (Seoul), and is an actress and director.