PLAYFUL TRAINING

This book questions whether the practice of martial arts in physical actor training encourages a physicality with its origins in masculinised regimentation. The training of the body of the actor in physical practices, historically connected with the martial and military sphere, assumes that disciplining methods can lead to a ‘neutral’, ‘natural’ or ‘universal’ body, which leaves out of account the question of cultural context and gender identity. The book examines key training methods theoretically and explores how actor training might resist such masculinised regimentation. It analyses physical exercises, derived from the martial and militaristic spheres, in well-established actor training approaches of the twentieth-century. The book proposes an alternative training structure inspired by capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art.