A new practice for performing artists, inspired by the Biochemistry of Emotion

“Molecules, cells, organisms, clusters, colonies are the beginning shape of life’s movement”

(Stanley Keleman)

BACKGROUND

This workshop is based on the Artistic Research that Daniela is carrying out at the Accademia Teatro Dimitri, Lugano, Switzerland (Master of Arts in Artistic Research). Her research aims, among others, at exploring the biology of emotions and defining an innovative training method and artistic practice that brings together life science and performing arts.

BIOCHEMISTRY OF EMOTION

A significant input to this work comes from the Biochemistry of emotion a theory developed by PhD Candace Pert: “We’re not just little hunks of meat. We’re vibrating like a tuning fork —

we send out a vibration to other people. We broadcast and receive. Thus the emotions orchestrate the interactions among all our organs and systems to control that.”

Pert’s research reveals how chemical substances produced by our organism – neuropeptides and their receptors – constitute the biological basis of our consciousness. The latter is expressed through emotions, beliefs and expectations, deeply affecting the way we perceive and react to the world.

Pert’s theory shows how certain molecules – neuropeptides – that carry emotional messages, reside not only in the brain, but throughout the whole body. All the cells of our body embed, in the cell’s membrane, specific receptors that bind the neuropeptides.
For this reason, physical manifestations are often the expression of intangible sensations because emotions are an important tool that the body has to put in actions certain physical actions in order to survive.

In fact the genes codifying for the molecules of emotions are strictly conserved – showing a low rate of mutations – along evolution.

A certain quantity of energy is produced by the cell to put in place emotional responses. However when emotions are held in our body, the energy is blocked.
When emotional responses are suppressed, denied or blocked then they cannot express their full energetic potential and their flow is hampered. Emotions blocks, determined by cellular impediments, determine alterations in our behaviour and energy flow.

For this reason, having full access to our emotional network implies tapping into an unleashed level of energy.

THE WORK

The theatrical/artistic background takes its biggest influence by the body-voice practice developed by J.Grotowski. Daniela Marcozzi has studied for four years with Peter Rose, a former student of J.Grotowski and learned the Plastiques and the body-voice training.

In the context of this workshop, the theatrical work will match her biological studies in order to unblock biological energies and channel them in the artistic expression; the awareness of this liberating process translates into the possibility of an enhanced scenic presence, a more conscious and authentic self-expression together with an improved capacity of understanding and communicating with others on scene (empathy).

This workshop is finalized to access the informational/emotional network of the performer’s organism through breathing, inner visualization, movement research, voice exercises and singing, techniques of embodiment, fantasy and imagination.
These are elements that will break down specific molecular structures therefore unleashing energies and channelling them towards intentional actions.

The training allows the trainee to get out of the comfort zone by relentlessly trying to get to those places of the organism where expression is hidden, difficult and sometimes even intentionally neglected.

More in details we’ll work with: awareness of the healthy muscular tone movement research

embodiment
urgency
sharing → creating a process with the others and the space playfulness
inner visualization
breathing
open up new rooms in the body
voice exercises
body resonators
embodiment of text and/or song

This work is a group-based practice.