Ethos

Ethos

Many years ago I met the Tibetan lama and meditation master Dr Akong Tulku Rinpoche. A refugee, a doctor, a teacher, and founder of the „ROKPA” charity - organization that helps people through out the world. I became fascinated with his human qualities, with his compassion, wisdom, and understanding of the roots of happiness and success. Just by coincidence Rinpoche saw some of my theatre work in the early '90s. I asked him what would be most beneficial for performers, and performing arts nowadays. Akong Rinpoche told me: “Practice coordination”.

At the beginning I had no idea what this simple word meant for theatre practitioners. Over the years my “goats – collegues” and I, started practising this famous “coordination”. After nearly twenty years of practice, this technique became a vehicle for modern actors - a technique for theatre, and film actors, as well as for dancers, choreographers, musicians, performers and directors. Anyone who is in the field of performing arts, will find this technique useful.

One can speak about it in many ways, but the main thing to understand is that everything we do is interconnected. The natural state of a human being is that our mind, voice and imagination are truly conected. Speech and body, and feeling are truly connected.The practicing of Coordination is the way of understanding that all we do, whether we are actors, directors, dancers, teachers, is integrated. It is also connected with our external environment – with other people, with all circumstances we live our lives. Sound simple? It is. However, intellectual understanding is merely a pale shadow of what it is in real terms. It gives strength, and confidence similar to a well trained musician, who after a proper education knows exactly how to use his piano or violin. We, performers will gain a similar understanding of our acting craft. Often people ask me how to train presence, magnetism and energy on stage, there in an answer to all of these questions, through work and practice of the  Coordination Method.

In that way the ancient wisdom of Tibetan enlightened and sacred wisdom is supporting our modern theatre. There is lot of indigenous practices, filled with precision, energy, and sharpness in the world. So, we are also learning from other cultures, remembering that all of them can teach us something special for theatre.

Grzegorz Bral

Head of the LSPAP