Ep 39: Pedro Ilgenfritz – Physical Theatre: learning who are you are and speaking without words

<p>How do we speak? What messages do we send out, even unconsciously? We can take three elements: the words you use, your tone of voice, and your body language, and reflect that it&#39;s the record of the words spoken that have been held up to history as most significant. E.M.Forster asked &quot;How can I know what I think until I see what I say?&quot; But it&#39;s those other two – tone and body – that may sometimes convey far more than the words themselves.</p><p>I think it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who offered the insight that, &quot;What you are speaks so clearly that I cannot hear what you say.&quot;</p><p>Can we learn to &quot;speak&quot; more effectively even without using words? At Hagley Theatre School that&#39;s a powerful part of the acting course under Director, Pedro Ilgenfritz.</p><p>Pedro’s theatre journey began in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, down towards the border with Uruguay. A time towards the end of dictatorships so his father rightly cautioned the dangers of voicing your beliefs. In times of suspicion about the mechanisms and the reach of power it&#39;s necessary to remind yourself that, &quot;You may not know who&#39;s listening.&quot; </p><p>So Pedro travelled, learning from circus and clowns and mime; then of what the body could say and teach without words, through Physical Theatre, masks, and the techniques of Jacques Lecoq.</p><p>Now, as the Theatre School&#39;s Director, his students in the acting programme are challenged in so many ways to use these techniques to construct theatre that speaks to the urgent issues we face; issues that politicians seem to fail to address and that can leave us feeling impotent. </p><p>One focus in these podcasts is on identity and the importance, maybe necessity, in these testing times of knowing who you are. </p><p>The value is real. One young man from a university background as a scientist explained his presence on the acting course: &quot;I want to discover who I am.”</p>