Theatre, Dance and Performance Training

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‘Habitational action’: beyond inner and outer

action

Frank Camilleri

To cite this article: Frank Camilleri (2013) ‘Habitational action’: beyond inner and outer action,
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 4:1, 30-51, DOI: 10.1080/19443927.2012.755469

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19443927.2012.755469

Published online: 16 Apr 2013.

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Theatre, Dance and Performance Training
Vol. 4(1), 2013, 30–51, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19443927.2012.755469

‘Habitational action’: beyond inner and

outer action
Frank Camilleri

In Training for Performance: A Meta-Disciplinary Account, John Matthews argues for a move beyond the
dominance of psychophysical discourse in actor training. Psychophysicality, in discourse if not in
practice, is an important battle that has been won. The work of Phillip Zarrilli in particular has been
crucial in articulating a terminology about an intuitive certainty that twentieth-century practi-
tioners like Stanislavski, Copeau, and Grotowski have explored in various ways. Unlike Matthews,
however, this article argues that a shift beyond the prevalence of psychophysical discourse can still
be rooted in the practice of exercises and other formative strategies. The article takes its cue from
a practice-as-research laboratory investigation on the training–performance continuum the
author has been pursuing since 2003. A milestone development has led to the identification of
‘habitational action’ as a term that allows actor and performer processes to be discussed without a
priori restrictions of inner/outer problematics. The article first outlines the research practice that
led to ‘habitational action’, followed by an explanation of the term and a discussion of some
implications. To achieve a broader understanding, ‘habitational action’ is then situated by means of a
close reading of Zarrilli’s term ‘inhabiting’ and Lorna Marshall’s account of ‘habits’.

Keywords: actor training, psychophysical, habitational, Zarrilli, inhabiting

In Training for Performance: A Meta-Disciplinary Account, John Matthews (2011,

pp. 42 – 56) argues for a move beyond the dominance of psychophysical
discourse of the past decades when talking about actor training.
Psychophysicality, in discourse if not in practice, is an important battle that
has been won. The concepts of ‘psychophysicality’ and ‘bodymind’ now
occupy the same space that the unconscious, the sign system, and social class
structure enjoy in other spheres of human knowledge: we no longer need to
justify their discursive existence. The work of Phillip Zarrilli in particular has
been crucial in articulating a terminology in English about an intuitive certainty
that twentieth-century practitioners like Konstantin Stanislavski, Jacques
Copeau, Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski, and Eugenio Barba explored in
various ways in their work and respective languages.
Unlike Matthews, however, in this article I argue that a shift beyond the
prevalence of psychophysical discourse can still be rooted in the practice of

q 2013 Taylor & Francis

 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 31

exercises and other formative strategies (Matthews 2011, p. 6). I will take my
cue from a practice-as-research laboratory investigation on the training–
performance continuum I have been pursuing since 2003. A milestone
development has led to the identification of ‘habitational action’ as a term that
allows me to speak about actor and performer processes without a priori
restrictions of inner/outer problematics. The word ‘habitational’ circumvents
and surpasses the embedded dichotomy in compound neologisms such as
‘bodymind’ and ‘psychophysical’ whose linguistic morphology reinforces the
discursive split they seek to avoid.
I will first outline the research practice that led to ‘habitational action’,
followed by an explanation of what I understand by the term and a discussion
of some implications. I will then situate ‘habitational action’ by means of a
close reading of Zarrilli’s term ‘inhabiting’ and Lorna Marshall’s account of
‘habits’.

‘Habitational action’

As a theatre practitioner since 1989, I have been influenced by the training,

performance, and ethical dimensions of Grotowski, Barba, and Ingemar Lindh.
In 2001 I set up Icarus Performance Project (Malta) as an ongoing research
laboratory that focuses on the space between training and performance
processes as a self-contained and integral phenomenon (http://www.
icarusproject.info). Since 2004 I have found a permanent home in academia
that enables me to develop my hybrid laboratory–academic practice. Icarus
Project develops its research by means of two branches, mainly (1)
performance structures and (2) technical/experimental structures. Both
branches explore the interplay of training and performance via improvisation
processes. ‘Habitational action’ emerged from the second branch, from work
I have been conducting since 2003 on a quality in the performer’s practice that
tends to occur more frequently in instances of improvisation with assimilated
techniques than in performance. In ‘Tekhnē Sessions: Investigating “Dynamic
Aliveness” in the Actor’s Work’ (2010), I called this quality ‘dynamic aliveness’,
indicating not only the manner in which a training task is performed, but also
the matter of what is performed, in the process marking a form of
compositional embodiment that blends training and performance:

In these instances the practitioner occupies a central or interactive ground

where the technical meets the imaginative. Rather than a ground or space, it is
more accurate to view it as a spectrum that ranges from codified and technical
work on one end, to free improvisation in performance on the other. (Camilleri
2010, p. 158)

The shades of possible interaction in between these two poles are as diverse
as a spectrum. With Tekhnē Sessions I investigate aspects that can be found on
the training side of the spectrum (Camilleri 2010, pp. 162– 170). With
Duration 56 I explore the space towards the performance end (Camilleri
2013, pp. 158–161). ‘Habitational action’ emerged from the work on Duration
56.
32 F. Camilleri

Duration 56 explores the concept and practice of duration, repetition, and

improvisation within a five-phase improvisation structure of actions and
tasks performed in an installation-type setting involving chairs and lanes
(see Figure 1). Each phase has further indications that steer, but do not
determine, the event:

Figure 1 The installation-type setting of the first version of Duration 56 (Attard Community
Theatre, Malta, 2008). Photo by Jeremy de Maria.
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 33

Phase 1: Initiation (how to start)

– Sit in stillness
– Stand up from your chair
– Sit down
– Step on and walk across your lane
– Include stops and pauses
– Repeat and vary any of the above indications (see Figure 2).

Phase 2: Development (set a collective rhythm)

– Walk/run/move: linearly up and down your lane

– Explore various dynamics (e.g. fast, slow, big, small steps), configurations
(by relating to partners), and patterns (combining dynamics and
configurations)
– Repeat and vary any of the indications in Phases 1 and 2. (see Figures 3 and 7).

Phase 3: Elaboration (generate a wider range of actions)

– Generate and perform movement scores via Principles of Composition and

Interaction within the framework of Phases 1 and 2 (see Figures 3 and 8).

Phase 4: Opening (fuller use of the space)

From within the framework of Phase 3, develop:

– Right-angle, diagonal, and circular walks/runs
– Move chairs in the space (first in your lane, then crossing over to other
lanes; see Figure 4)
– Contact dynamics and configurations with the other practitioners (see
Figure 9).

Phase 5: Liberation (improvisation)

– Collective improvisation based on material developed during the piece

(see Figures 5 and 6).

Though the indications in each phase are determined, the agency (who?),
manner (how?), and time (when?) of their execution are not: it is up to the
performers to decide if and when they accomplish a task. This means that
the spatial and temporal dimensions of Duration 56 are always dependent on
the practitioners’ in-the-moment decisions during performance. Duration 56
can be presented in various ways, e.g. with extra objects and/or text and/or
audience participation.
The term ‘habitational’ initially emerged from a need to describe a specific
quality and disposition – or rather a quality of disposition – that I was seeking in
the practitioners. As should be clear in the outline above, the performers’
emphasis in Duration 56 is neither on a score or outer action (because there is
34 F. Camilleri

Figure 2 Judita Vivas and Robert Klarmann in the first version of Duration 56 (Attard
Community Theatre, Malta, 2008). Photo by Jeremy de Maria.

no fixed one), nor on some kind of inner action that requires practitioners to
actively and directly evoke emotions or memories (personal or cultural). It is,
rather, on what I call the ‘habitational’ nature of the performer’s work:

Semantically and etymologically, habitational refers to the act of dwelling or

dressing. As such, it does not indicate the object of habitation (house or

Figure 3 Robert Klarmann, Judita Vivas, and Timothy Slater in the first version of Duration 56
(Attard Community Theatre, Malta, 2008). Photo by Jeremy de Maria.
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 35

Figure 4 Robert Klarmann and Judita Vivas in the first version of Duration 56 (Attard
Community Theatre, Malta, 2008). Photo by Jeremy de Maria.

garment) or the subject of habitation (dweller or wearer). In the performance

context I apply the word it refers neither to outer action (e.g. technique or
score), nor to inner action (e.g. memories or emotions). Since the practitioner is
also object and subject of habitation, the act of habitation is necessarily
connected to both outer and inner in its occurrence. However, instead of
focusing on inner/outer processes, the attention in my investigation is shifted on
to the occurrence of the act. (Camilleri 2013, pp. 161–162)
36 F. Camilleri

Duration 56 attempts to do so through the strategic use of structures that

involve simple everyday actions and movements. Strictly speaking, one does
not need any prior technical or inner preparation to perform the structure.
For example, apart from knowledge of its five phases (which can be acquired
by observation, but ideally through participation), a practitioner does not
even require a ‘pre-performance’ warm-up because the first phases of
Duration 56 compensate for any such need at the same time as incorporating
this process, effort, or dimension within the performance event itself. If
there is a pre-requisite element in Duration 56, its obviousness hides its
centrality, i.e. that a practitioner is in that space in time because they want to
be there and are willing to play along, even if they opt to ignore or work
against the reference points provided by the tasks. This tautological condition
(of doing something because you do it) is essential not only for ‘habitational
action’ but for any form of performance. It is more evident and immediate in
Duration 56 because, stripped down to essentials as it is here, there is no
outer or inner action alibi. In this sense, and as I will discuss later, ‘habitational
action’ is reminiscent of ‘play’ in the autotelic activity of games (see e.g.
Kendrick 2011). It is also what compensates for the lack of fixed scores
(movement, emotive, or imaginary), which of course is not deemed as
‘lacking’ in this context. The practitioners have tasks to fulfil (or otherwise)
and they do so within the parameters of the designated space. The work is a
laboratory procedure that limits options in order to explore what happens to
the performer-in-performance in performance, changing one variable at a time
(i.e. the indications within each phase).
It is problematic to describe ‘habitational action’ because, as its etymology
implies, it is dependent on a subject (dweller/wearer) and object (dwelling/
clothes) and yet is neither but the act that brings them together. An account
of ‘habitational action’ will thus always appear ‘sketchy’ because it is
dependent on other phenomena for its occurrence. The strategy I will adopt
in this article is to align it with (precisely to co-habit) other discourses in order
to shed comparative light on its modus operandi.

Applicability and implications

Since ‘habitational action’ occupies an in-between ground due to the research

on the training– performance continuum which instigated it, working on it
entails impacting on the practitioner’s capacity for outer and inner action.
Beyond the context of my research, it is possible to apply the term to denote
an aspect in the practitioner’s work that encompasses psychophysicality. Such
a possibility indicates the potential of a larger project. It is not simply the case
of exchanging one component (word) for another in an existing mechanism
(discourse). Rather, the rewiring (rethinking) that such a term necessitates has
the potential to stimulate a shift in discourse around the performer’s work. It
frees space from issues such body–mind ‘split’, ‘division’, and ‘integration’ to
enable new questions to be asked. As Matthews (2011, p. 55) clarifies in his
meta-disciplinary account of training, he does not propose

to silence body –mind discourse just because it is tied into the political battles
fought in an earlier moment of performance, the spoils of which are now being
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 37

enjoyed, but because to move away from these discussions . . . is to ventilate a

new set of questions.

Likewise, the possibilities presented by ‘habitational action’ open new vistas

that are not always already centred around, or even linked with,
psychophysical integration.

Figure 5 Daily actions by Timothy Slater and Judita Vivas in the first version of Duration 56
(Attard Community Theatre, Malta, 2008). Photo by Jeremy de Maria.
38 F. Camilleri

Figure 6 (a and b) Daily actions by Robert Klarmann and Timothy Slater in the first version of
Duration 56 (Attard Community Theatre, Malta, 2008). Photos by Jeremy de Maria.

Unlike Matthews’ project, however, ‘habitational action’ does not a priori

seek to ‘“decentralise” the exercise in critical discourse around training’
(Matthews 2011, p. 5). As long as the element of preparation (exercise, task,
or any other formative or creative strategy) is not fetishised by means of an
over-historicisation or over-theorisation that pushes the focus on to
constructed narratives that (re)tell their own story, we should not be afraid of
foregrounding the exercise. One can understand Matthews’ position but his
reservation is indicative of a primary concern with academic-induced rhetoric
rather than forward-facing practice. Ironically, his approach is revealingly
similar to the ones he seeks to displace:

Given that . . . the exercises practised in each discipline of training are largely
specific to that training practice, it would seem to follow that what constitutes
training has little to do with the specificity of each exercise, but more to do with
something about exercising itself. Addressing itself to the formation of both
group and individual capabilities through training this book explores in detail
how the acquisition of skills . . . relates to the construction of social identities
and the self-identification of individuals with ethical and aesthetical paradigms.
(Matthews 2011, pp. 5 –6)

The construction of social identities and the identification with ethical/

aesthetic paradigms in Matthews’ theoretical meta-narrative are thus made to
occupy the privileged position vacated with his displacement of body–mind
rhetoric. A similar argument can be levelled at this article with the crucial
difference that the ‘narrative’ constructed here is precisely intended ‘to tell its
own story’. What I am advocating here is not so much the replacement of one
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 39

model with another but, rather, a broader and more level field that is not
almost exclusively dominated by theories and histories of training. ‘Practice’,
in these narratives, is often utilised to make theoretical or historical points
about practice. It is rarely pursued to generate innovative (or potentially
innovative) practical insight or knowledge. This article seeks to highlight
points about practice through (a specific) practice. Due to its nature, it is
necessarily and initially a localised and personal narrative.
For ‘habitational action’ to achieve currency beyond its immediate context,
it is imperative to engage in a terminological exercise; hence the focus in this
article.1 To this end, I will cross-reference ‘habitational’ with a study of
1. Though I have Zarrilli’s use of the term ‘inhabit’. Future publications will reference the term
presented the concept within the context of other concepts and practices (including neutrality,
of ‘habitational action’
in various conferences contemporary dance, and performance art), but as a first step it is essential to
(ASTR) American start with Zarrilli since his work and writing are a crucial point of reference on
Society for Theatre
Research 2011, (PSi) psychophysicality. This is in line with Matthews’ (2011, p. 54) point that a
Performance Studies move beyond the rhetoric of body– mind integration ‘is [possible] because of,
international 2012, not in spite of, the work done by Zarrilli and others in arguing for a wholeness
(TaPRA) Theatre and
Performance Research in the conception of the individual’. Indeed, as Zarrilli stated during a
2012), and though it workshop held in Malta in July 2012, one of his aims is to develop a vocabulary
features in a recent
publication (Camilleri about the actor’s work. It is through his terminological endeavour that I aim to
2013), this article shed associative light on ‘habitational action’, teasing out similarities and
constitutes the first
attempt at a detailed
differences between two terms that share the same etymology and refer to
terminological related phenomena. However, as Zarrilli does not promote ‘inhabit’ to the
placement. extent that he does with ‘psychophysical’ or ‘bodymind’, it is necessary to
construct a picture of what he implies by ‘inhabit’, in the process shedding
light on an important aspect of his vocabulary. I will do so by focusing on Part
II of Psychophysical Acting (2009), specifically Chapters 5 and 6 where Zarrilli
elaborates on his approach.

Figure 7 Robert Klarmann and Judita Vivas in the first version of Duration 56 (Attard
Community Theatre, Malta, 2008). Photo by Sandro Spina.
40 F. Camilleri

‘Inhabiting’ Zarrilli

Phillip Zarrilli is ‘internationally known for training actors in psychophysical

processes through Asian martial/meditation arts, and as director/performer’
(http://www.phillipzarrilli.com). His training approach is based on highly
codified practices such as kathakali, kalarippayattu, yoga, and taiqiquan. As will
be discussed later, this aspect of his practice conditions the way he conceives
of training and performance as discrete processes. He has also written
extensively on psychophysicality, mainly from a phenomenological perspective
that privileges the performer’s experience. His use of ‘inhabit’ within such a
practical and theoretic context makes it a useful tool for an understanding of
‘habitational action’.
Zarrilli uses the term almost exclusively as a verb. It only features once as
a noun (‘inhabitation’) in the two chapters under review. It first appears in
Chapter 5 as the final item of ‘six primary psycho-dynamic elements and/or
principles’ that he identifies in psychophysical systems of training. By virtue
of the developmental nature of the list, it can be considered as the
culmination of the other elements/principles: (1) ‘awakening [inner] energy’,
(2) ‘attunement’ (of body and mind), (3) ‘heightening awareness’ (‘both
inward and simultaneously outward’), (4) ‘attending to [specific tasks with
one’s primary focus]’, and (5) ‘doing and being done’ where ‘The actor plays
the acting score but is simultaneously played by the score’ (Zarrilli 2009,
p. 83). The sixth item in the list, ‘Inhabiting dual/multiple consciousness’,
indicates what is essentially an ability to keep an open perceptual awareness
simultaneously with a primary focus: ‘The actor or martial artist is able to
stay on task or in action while making adjustments as necessary to others,
the activity, the audience, etc. in the moment’ (p. 83). In this particular
context, ‘inhabiting’ implies an ability to ‘do’ (be aware of) more than one
thing at the same time.
Zarrilli’s next use of the term provides further insight:

If and when you have a predetermined idea of what it is you can or should be
doing, feeling, or experiencing, your relationship to what you are doing will not
be totally in the moment . . . . You will not be inhabiting the bodymind and
energy simply and clearly. (p. 86)

Here the term is suggestive of a human capacity that is not always optimally
fulfilled or engaged; in this particular case, predetermination hinders the
actor’s perceptual awareness from being in the moment. As an ability, ‘inhabit’
marks the space of technique in suggesting something that can be learnt,
acquired, and taught. As a capacity, it marks a general propensity or potential
possessed by human beings. Arguably, the ability implied by ‘inhabiting’ is the
fulfilment of the promise of the capacity. For example, though most have the
capacity to be athletes, the specific abilities to become one are acquired. The
distinction is much subtler in the context of a form of awareness in the actor’s
work because the object of analysis is not a visible and measurable technique.
Like ‘habitational action’, it is, rather, what can be viewed as a meta-technique,
the how (to inhabit) that drives technique; hence Zarrilli’s emphasis on breath.
As he explains in the context of ‘imagination’, it is indeed a
‘psychophysiological’ phenomenon and a ‘state of being/doing’:
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 41

Tadeusz Kantor described psyche as the ‘supersensuous’ aspect of the actor’s

presence when fully inhabiting with one’s entire bodymind ‘the force called
“imagination”’ . . . The actor’s imagination here is active and reactive at the
same time. It is not passive. One enters into a psychophysiological relationship
with one’s entire bodymind and perceptual awareness as one inhabits a certain
state of being/doing. The actor’s bodymind is attuned to a supersensuous ability
to activate and engage. (p. 87)

An ‘ability to activate and engage’ is thus one possible consequence of the

capacity to inhabit ‘a certain state of being/doing’. By extension, ‘habitational
action’ can be located in those instances when capacity is translated into ability:
doing the simple tasks in Duration 56, which every practitioner possesses as
‘capacity’ in everyday life, invests them with the worked quality of ‘ability’ in the
moment of performance. In this sense, ‘habitational action’ underscores the
lived-in and living (growing and changing) quality of movement.
Zarrilli’s account of ‘a set of complementary teaching/coaching strategies’,
which ‘help attune and activate the actor’, provides more insight. One of these
strategies is called ‘inhabiting the space between . . . on the cusp’ (p. 89).
Zarrilli’s description of this particular approach is reminiscent of ability:
2. ‘Attentive breathing Following each in-breath and out-breath with the inner eye sensitizes the
provides a beginning
point toward inhabiting bodymind to the nuances of the space between in- and out-breath. Action is
an optimal state of given birth on the cusp of an in/out-breath, from the space between . . . . This
bodymind awareness
and readiness in which space between is the place/moment where impulse originates, and therefore
the “body is all eyes” where transitions in an acting score are given birth. The actor here learns how
and one is able to
“stand still while not
to do nothing. One inhabits the space between with ‘no-mind’ – a concentrated,
standing still.” Keeping full-attentive bodymind. (p. 90)
one’s external eye
focused through a point
ahead, and keeping the This description indicates the temporal and spatial coordinates of the ability/
inner eye focused on capacity implied by ‘inhabit’. The ‘when’ and ‘where’ this meta-technical
tracking inhalations/
exhalations to and from
awareness can be located, via breath and imagination (the inner eye),2 is in
the region below the transit, in between one action/place and another. To be more precise, the action
navel is a way of keeping and place (of breath in this case) are related to such an extent that the one
our busy, analytical,
squirrel-like minds becomes the other during inhabitation. This is the ‘no-mind’, the ‘concentrated,
occupied’ (Zarrilli 2009, full-attentive bodymind’, with its dynamic of motion implied in the paradoxical
pp. 25 – 26).
formulation of ‘doing nothing’. This approximates my understanding of
3. Though I use ‘neutral’
here mainly in the sense
‘habitational action’ in Duration 56: ‘doing nothing’ even when ‘doing something’
Zarrilli does in pre- such as walking up and down a room, performing simple everyday tasks, while at
performative training the same time keeping an open awareness that can be described as ‘neutral’ in
(‘the ki/sensory
awareness and energy happening almost in spite of the actions carried out.3
aroused are heightened The nature of the phenomenon suggested by Zarrilli’s ‘inhabit’ is thus a kind
but neutral in that they
have not been shaped of open perceptual awareness that oversees and informs being in a manner
or resonated with that does not block, predetermine, or exclude. It is not a tightly controlled
dramatic structures’;
Zarrilli 2009, p. 100), I
form of focus but, rather, a kind of three-dimensional and multi-sensory
elaborate on this aspect (pp. 97 – 98) overseeing awareness that emanates and returns to the self:
elsewhere where I
compare ‘habitational
action’ with neutral The space behind or on the periphery or above can and should be as fully
action in the context of inhabited as the place of the gaze ahead. Optimally one looks from behind, one
Lecoq’s mask work.
(Camilleri 2013,
sees from and through one’s feet, keeping an awareness of the feet as the foot
pp. 163 – 164) moves along the surface of the floor. (p. 91)
42 F. Camilleri

This awareness can be shared, but collective sharing is dependent on the

individual responsibility to inhabit ‘a certain state of being/doing’:

The sharing of breath-as-energy becomes palpable in the studio if and when

everyone in the studio is taking equal responsibility for inhabiting fully their
bodymind awareness, and sharing that awareness generously with all the others
in the space. (p. 97)

When two or more persons share the same time/space, they literally co-habit
that place in time. In such situations, each person is responsible for their
individual inhabitation, which in turn makes possible the encounter and which
eventually serves as the basis for more articulated and formed sharings such
as performances. The dynamic of individual and group work is reminiscent of
Ingemar Lindh’s ‘first premise for collective creation’, which is paradoxically
‘the individual’s capacity to be alone’ (Lindh 2010, p. 41). The link with Zarrilli
is an easy one to make. However, I evoke Lindh mainly to indicate (below)
similarities and differences between Zarrilli’s ‘inhabiting’ and my use of
‘habitational action’.
A reading of Zarrilli’s (2009) use of ‘inhabiting’ in Chapter 5 has drawn
the picture of a phenomenon associated with an ability and a capacity to
tap into a form of awareness which is accessible in the in-between time and
place of breathing. It is primarily an individual phenomenon, but it is
possible to share the manifestation of this awareness. ‘Habitational action’
in Duration 56 partakes of all these elements. Though no overt and direct
stress on breath is made in this branch of my research, I seek a comparable
outcome by other means, including the use of levels, speed, and actual/
imaginary lines as points of reference.4 The crucial difference from Zarrilli
4. See also the Principles is the association of ‘habitational action’ not only with how to be/perform,
of Composition and but also with a compositional propensity in performance that equally
Interaction that inform
Duration 56 (Camilleri privileges the what is being performed. This emphasis necessarily entails
2013, p. 154). resistance to predetermined fixity in performance, which implies
improvisation. In this sense, my research is influenced by Lindh’s work
on collective improvisation as performance. This distinction highlights
another divergence from Zarrilli: my concern is not so much to achieve
psychophysical integration (which is achievable as a side effect),5 but to
5. This is mainly due to the explore the limits of training and performance by blurring boundaries and
reason provided by blending processes. Consequently, the grammatical difference between
Zarrilli himself: ‘As one
learns to inhabit a form Zarrilli’s use of ‘inhabiting’ as a verb (also occasionally as a noun) and my
or structure of action, use of ‘habitational’ as an adjective is indicative of a difference in emphasis
one is gradually attuned
to an ever-subtler and application, a difference that shifts the focus away from inner or outer
experience of one’s actions on to the occurrence of the act.
relationship to that
structure’ (Zarrilli 2009,
p. 48). Duration 56
extends the remit of ‘Pre-performing’ Zarrilli
what Zarrilli calls ‘form
or structure of action’.
The etymology of In this section I analyse the use of ‘inhabit’ in Chapter 6 of Psychophysical
‘habitational’ is also
suggestive of
Acting by means of a comparative reading that juxtaposes the term with
psychophysical other concepts in what Zarrilli calls ‘pre-performative training’. Zarrilli’s
integration as a pre-performative training marks the closest point to my research on the
constituent element.
training – performance continuum, and yet a consideration of the
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 43

frameworks within which both processes operate also highlights the

distance.
Zarrilli’s model distinguishes between training and performance as separate
phenomena and distinct processes, with ‘transposition’ as the link between
the two. His four-phase account of the psychophysical actor’s process
distinguishes between ‘Phase I: Training’, ‘Phase II: From Training to
Performance’, ‘Phase III: In Performance’, and ‘Phase IV: Back to Training
(Phase I)’ (Zarrilli 2009, p. 84). Essentially, these are two processes, training
and performance, with a link in between and a return to training at the end.
The cyclic mechanism embedded in Phase IV marks an attempt to integrate
training and performance. However, in Phase II Zarrilli fuses training and
performance on the assumption that they are separate. This is related to an
observation Matthews makes:

Paradoxically, Zarrilli’s training practice assumes the existence of a dualism

between mind and body in order to perform an interweaving of the processes of
thinking and doing – thus producing the optimal state of ‘standing still while not
standing still. (Matthews 2011, p. 45)

Likewise, Zarrilli’s attempt to combine training and performance in

Phase II and IV is based on the premise that they are discrete processes.
This position is mainly conditioned by Zarrilli’s reliance on a training
of codified forms that requires immersive practice. Zarrilli (2009, pp. 63 –
80) discusses the importance of these ‘source traditions’ in his approach
(i.e. kalarippayattu, yoga, and taiqiquan) in Chapter 4 of Psychophysical
Acting.
In my research with the Icarus Project I seek to blend training and
performance processes via improvisation structures within a laboratory
setting. This can be seen as a consequence of a long-term practice of
training processes influenced by Grotowski, Barba, and Lindh as well as by
the context of academia that conditions the logistics and methodologies of
that activity (see Camilleri 2010, pp. 160 – 162). Duration 56 aims to be
both training and performance and at the same time also to make
laboratory exploration and application accessible in an economic and
cultural climate resistant to it. The design stage of the structure, which
took around three years to crystallise in an evolving context with different
collaborators, was a crucial part of the research.6 The current stage is to
6. For an account of the practise the structure over a period of time and in different contexts to
overlapping contexts test and verify (through modification and adaptation) certain discoveries
that led to Duration 56,
see Camilleri (2013). that emerge. ‘Habitational action’ is one major element that emerged
and which is currently being explored further within the parameters of
Projections, a new work whose investigation of improvised dramaturgies
is closer than Duration 56 to the performance end of the training –
performance spectrum.
According to Zarrilli (2009, p. 88), ‘pre-performative training’ enables ‘the
actor/performer [to] learn how to modulate, shape, and deploy one’s energy
in order to practically solve aesthetic and dramaturgical problems’. Chapter 6
focuses on this aspect of his approach.
One of Zarrilli’s first uses of the term here is interesting because it signals
its only appearance in Chapters 5 and 6 as a noun: ‘inhabitation’. This
44 F. Camilleri

Figure 8 (a and b) Judita Vivas, Frank Camilleri, and Ricky Flax in a Duration 56 session at the
School of Arts, University of Kent (Canterbury, United Kingdom 2010). Photos courtesy of
Frank Camilleri.

occurrence is conditioned by the relational context to another noun

(‘experience’):

The beginning actor’s commonplace problems of anticipation, pushing, not

listening, inattention, etc. are all manifestations of not entering fully into a state
of being at play in the moment. The structured improvisations explained in this
chapter provide a point of entry into the actor’s inhabitation and experience of
this state of play in-between. (p. 100)

‘Inhabitation’ is here used in the sense of the fulfilment of the actor’s capacity
for optimal awareness. Significantly, Zarrilli distinguishes between ‘inhabitation’
and ‘experience’. Both are related in the sense that one leads to and overlaps
with the other, but a distinction is implied grammatically. Moreover, given the
context of its use and its recurrence in other instances, ‘experience’ indicates a
form of embodied reflective perception of a certain kind of awareness
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 45

(‘inhabitation’). The distinction between inhabitation and experience can also

be seen in this formulation: ‘The actor ideally begins to “play” (unthinkingly)
within each structure . . . discovering experientially what it feels like to inhabit
a psychophysical score without pre-meditation’ (p. 100).
The moment of experiencing, here linked with discovery, always comes
(however infinitesimally) after the moment of inhabitation, which in the
opening paragraph of Chapter 6 is linked with the moment of exploration
(Zarrilli 2009, p. 99). The relation and difference between inhabitation and
experience can be evoked in the difference between exploration and discovery:
though the latter entails the former,7 the former does not necessarily involve
7. Even in cases of the latter. If inhabiting marks optimal awareness that ‘do[es] nothing’ (p. 90),
unintended or experience indicates a form of reflective or informed awareness that suggests
unplanned discovery,
the realisation we agency and knowledge, and therefore of ‘doing something’. Due to its
discovered something constitutive blending of training and performance processes, ‘habitational
takes on the status of
exploration. action’ necessarily partakes of Zarrilli’s ‘inhabiting’ and experience, combining
the doing of ‘nothing’ with ‘something’ within the structural frame of Duration
56 in a manner that will be discussed in the next paragraph.
The other point that can be elicited from the Zarrilli quotations above is the
presence of ‘play’ in the equation. Chapter 6 is itself called ‘Exercises for “playing”
in-between’. The term is clearly a significant aspect of Zarrilli’s pre-performative
training and it is as such that it is related to experience and inhabitation. ‘To play’
suggests the mode or channel in pre-performative training that facilitates the
experience (through discovery/deployment in specific dramaturgical tasks) of an
open form of perceptual awareness marked by ‘inhabiting’ (Zarrilli 2009, p. 99).
In most instances, Zarrilli places the word between inverted commas,
highlighting the status of ‘playing’ as ‘improvising/performing’:

The rules for each structure[d improvisation] are specific. They require the
actor to deploy and shape ki/sensory awareness and focus/attention in specific
ways in the moment. Each structure is ‘played’ by inhabiting attention/
perception/awareness in the moment without intention and without thinking
about the rules. (p. 100)

This form of ‘play’, which is at the heart of what Zarrilli calls ‘transposition’,8
8. That is, how ‘the signals another overlapping element with the constituent improvisatory
principles and dynamics of ‘habitational action’. The open mechanism of Duration 56 is indeed
techniques of
psychophysical training aimed at stimulating ‘play’ (improvisation) on various levels, including movement
are initially transposed (daily actions and their variations) and their patterning/sequencing (see Figure
and applied to acting’
(Zarrilli 2009, p. 99). 9), configuration-creating (among performers), organisation of the structure,
and the fifth phase itself which consists entirely of a collective improvisation.
‘Play’ and ‘habitation’ share a symbiotic relationship at a fundamental level: just as
the latter marks the act of encounter between subject and object that goes
beyond inner/outer considerations, ‘play’ marks the action that fulfils player
(subject) and game (object-structure). In this sense ‘play’ (improvisation), and by
implication also player (performer) and game-structure (performance), is a
constituent aspect and an indication of the autotelic nature of ‘habitational
action’.
The rest of Chapter 6 is sectioned under the title ‘At work on structured
improvisations’ where Zarrilli describes various forms of his pre-performative
training that enable “playing” in-between’. His use of ‘inhabit’ in this context
46 F. Camilleri

corroborates my reading of the term (e.g. pp. 103–104), including the closest
Zarrilli comes to performance in pre-performative work, which ‘is to invent
structures that address the specific needs and dynamics of a particular
dramaturgy’ (p. 109).9 Though the meaning of ‘inhabit’ in the context of text-
9. See page 111 where based characterisation is intertwined with something akin to interpretation
Zarrilli discusses a and expression (and therefore no longer ‘neutral’ and unshaped; p. 100), it is
specific dramaturgical
case study from Genet’s still possible to identify traces of a phenomenon associated with an ability to
The Maids. tap into a form of open perceptual awareness which is accessible in the in-
between time and place of breath.

Rehabilitating ‘bad’ habits

One of the key ‘essences’ Edwin Creely (2010, pp. 215, 217) identifies in his
‘ethno-phenomenological enquiry’ of Zarrilli’s pre-performative training
concerns ‘repetition and habituation’. Though the word ‘habituation’ derives
from ‘habitual’, which Zarrilli calls ‘the stupidest thing’ you can do because ‘it
does no good whatsoever’,10 Creely applies it to denote the phenomenon I
10. See also: ‘Training have associated with ‘inhabit’. In a 2009 interview by Creely, Zarrilli observes:
through repetition of
forms can too easily
become empty and When you’re doing something that involves daily repetition of deep
habitual – like the mind- psychophysical training, it’s either the most brilliant thing that you will ever do
less way in which some
people work out in a or the stupidest thing because if it becomes [just] habitual and you’re not
sports centre through engaged in a kind of process whereby the doing of the exercise is somehow
repetition of exercises creating a psychophysical loop that is engaging you as completely as possible and
while watching
television or listening to you’re just going through it on the surface, it does no good whatsoever, there’s
the radio. The mind can no point in doing it. (Creely 2010, p. 217)
be elsewhere while the
body is being exercised
and toned. As far as I am aware, Zarrilli does not use the term ‘habituation’, certainly not
Psychophysical training
through repetition of
in any of the interview excerpts Creely quotes in his article, including the one
embodied forms cannot above where Zarrilli refers to ‘the inhabitation of experience’ and ‘inhabiting
be allowed to become the ways that lead’ towards the body becoming all eyes (Creely 2010, p. 217).
empty or habitual!’
(Zarrilli 2009, p. 30). Creely confuses Zarrilli’s ‘inhabitation’ (from ‘inhabit’) with ‘habituation’
(from ‘habituate’ and ‘habit’).
For the purposes of this article, I would like to rehabilitate Creely’s
terminological inaccuracy by including it in my delineation of ‘habitational
action’. He writes:

Repetition, for Zarrilli, leads to a state of habituation that, in turn, fosters a

‘sedimented knowledge’ in actors and provides, according to him, a liberating
pathway down which each actor must journey as an individual. (Creely 2010, p. 217)

‘Habitational action’ in Duration 56 includes within its performative range the

habitual as articulated here in Creely’s ‘habituation’. I will refer to Lorna
Marshall’s account of habits to elaborate.
Habitual actions are repetitive and automatic movement. They are linked
with a recurring selective tensing of muscles that leads to patterns of use:

As you grew up and began learning to move ‘appropriately’, certain muscles

came into prominence while others learned to disengage. Any formal movement
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 47

training you undertook in a sport, martial art or dance style further selected
particular muscles and patterns of use. As a consequence, in adulthood most of
us have certain muscles that are strongly developed and in regular use, while
others are rarely engaged. The patterns of habitual use are engraved in our
muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints. (Marshall 2008, p. 98)

Habitual movement in theatre is often highlighted as a block or obstacle.

Practices like Alexander and Feldenkrais specifically seek to improve
habitual and repetitive movement patterns to enhance proprioception
and expand movement repertoire. Habits are also seen as creatively and
imaginatively limiting in providing lazy and easy options because patterns of
habitual use:

are equally strongly engraved in our brains . . . . the first time you undertake an
action it creates a trail of neuron connections in your brain. If you repeat that
same action, the firing sequence in the brain follows the same trail. But in fact the
trail is more like a groove, since every time you repeat the action the groove gets
deeper, and each repetition carves it more strongly. (Marshall 2008, p. 98)

Theatremakers and actor trainers like Grotowski, Lecoq, and Zarrilli have
sought to counter what voice coach Patsy Rodenburg refers to as the
cluttering and smothering effects of habits (Rodenburg 1999). However, as
Marshall (2008, p. 99) observes, ‘there is nothing [essentially] wrong’ with
habitual patterns:

A habit is simply an easy way for the brain/body entity to function, one that
allows the conscious mind to disengage. And this is very useful in many areas of
human activity. A ballet dancer does not want to discover how to do an
arabesque each night on stage . . . The movement needs to become habitual in
order to free the brain for other activities.

There is indeed a fine line to tread between a movement being ‘habitual’

(considered ‘negative’) and one that becomes ‘second nature’ (considered
‘positive’); or, to use Zarrilli’s terminology, between doing something
habitually in a ‘mind-less way’ (2009, p. 30) and inhabiting a form with ‘no-
mind’ (p. 90) or ‘unthinkingly’ (p. 103).11 What kind of ‘not thinking’, then,
11. Cf. ‘Mindlessness and distinguishes the habitual from the psychophysical, ‘bad’ from ‘good’? For
mindfulness in decision- Zarrilli, the key difference is the ‘inhabitation’ of an optimal form of
making’ in Edinborough
(2011, pp. 22 –23). awareness. By implication, the ‘habitual’ is not a question of matter, because
the shape of a movement, gesture, or martial arts form can be both habitual
and psychophysical. Nor is it a question of manner, because one can perform
perfectly a complex set of exercises in a ‘mind-less way’ in a gym while
listening to the radio. It is, rather, a question of mode (awareness) that
necessarily impacts matter and manner of movement but which, due to its
meta-technique status, is distinct from both.
For Marshall (2008, p. 99), it is also a question of awareness but not exactly
in Zarrilli’s sense:

The problem lies in being unaware of the function of habits. If you don’t recognise
how powerful and all-pervading they are, you become their prisoner. You
48 F. Camilleri

become the sum of your habits, rather than a responsive and constantly
developing individual. (Emphasis added)

The implication being that, irrespective of whether you are working in a gym
or not, if you are aware of the function of habits, you recognise their power,
thereby opening yourself to the possibility of utilising that power and range
rather than becoming their prisoner:

Ideally, you want to be able to choose whether to follow a habit or not. And you
want to have a broad vocabulary of experiences. You want more than ten patterns
you can choose to follow (or not). You want a thousand. (Marshall 2008, p. 99)

This awareness of habits marks the possibility of interplay between habitual

and psychophysical modes. The work on ‘habitational action’ in Duration 56
explores this interplay within the training– performance continuum by means
of the duration, repetition, and elaboration of daily actions, such as walking,
sitting down, standing up, pushing/pulling, and picking/throwing imaginary
objects. Amongst other things, repetition, which can become ‘mind-less’ in
Duration 56 when focusing on other tasks, is used to generate rhythm and
stimulate the ‘sedimentation’ of embodied knowledge similar to that
highlighted by Creely (2010, p. 217).12
12. Regardless of ‘Habitational action’ does not a priori exclude the habitual. It operates in
awareness, there is the space between the habitual and the psychophysical, incorporating habits
always sedimentation in
the repetition of as part of the material at the practitioner’s disposal. In this way, the
movement over a ‘habitational’ explores and extends range: it does not censor or encourage the
prolonged time.
habitual; rather, it considers (and re-considers) it as material. This approach is
reminiscent, at least conceptually, of the Judson Dance Theater’s inclusion of
pedestrian movement and mundane tasks on stage and of ‘empty gestures’ in
Lindh’s (2010, pp. 46– 47) research on improvisation as performance. The
‘habitational’ goes beyond the habitual by embracing not so much the end
product itself (the habit) but the process of becoming habit, precisely a
rehabilitation of Creely’s term ‘habituation’:

Freeing yourself from imprisonment by patterns is a two-fold action; firstly, we

must refrain from repeating the old, unwanted pattern (stop carving the groove
any deeper), and then we need to divert our actions into a search for new
patterns. You must de-rut and then re-rut. (Marshall 2008, p. 99)

Re-rutting is indeed ‘habituation’: the action-process of becoming habit. The

habitual is simply a prominent and recurring way we function as human beings.
Its inclusion within the range of ‘habitational action’ also indicates one way in
which the latter counters (by contradicting) psychophysical rhetoric about
inner and outer actions, shifting it onto mode and occurrence, whilst still
keeping the discussion rooted in strategies of preparation and performance.

Conclusion

A principal aim of this article was to propose and situate a new term in
relation to an established discourse. To this effect, it was essential to dedicate
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 49

the main part of the argument to a detailed terminological exercise. A further

objective was to consider the possibility of movement within and beyond that
established discourse; hence the implications of ‘habitational action’ were
made to extend beyond a terminological shift.

Figure 9 Patterning of actions by Frank Camilleri and Judita Vivas in a Duration 56 session at the
School of Arts, University of Kent (Canterbury, United Kingdom 2010). Photo courtesy of Frank
Camilleri.
50 F. Camilleri

The blending of processes in the research on the training– performance

spectrum is indeed also symptomatic of a blurring of borders that studies in
‘the art of the actor’ seem intent on reinforcing with (1) the prevalence of
body– mind rhetoric, (2) the centrality of the exercise as some kind of
esoteric knowledge, and (3) a historiographic insistence on lineages.13
13. This refers not only to Despite the theatre laboratory context from which it emerged, the border-
lineages of blurring status of ‘habitational action’ sits more easily with ‘performance art’
theatremakers, but also
to the trend of tracing and ‘contemporary dance’ than with a psychophysical-centric or neatly
lineages of exercises. In delineated version of ‘theatre’. This brings me to a crucial question Matthews
both cases, the line
almost always extends asks about the possible reason for the prevalence of bodymind discourse in
only to the nineteenth actor training, which he suggests is symptomatic of an insecurity to guard
or early twentieth perceived artistic frontiers. Taking his cue from Rebecca Schneider’s concept
century, the advent of
the great theatre of the theatron (which he erroneously attributes to Patrick Campbell),
reforms in Europe, but Matthews (2011, pp. 53 –54) suggests that, perhaps, the continual dominance
also the heyday of
European imperialist of psychophysical discourse around actor training is due to a resistance to the
ventures. aperture brought about by performance and Performance Studies in the past
decades:

Could it be that the reason for the persistence, or rather the persistent insistence
on wholeness in theatre body discourse today is not so much tied into the
gender and race politics of the 1960s and 1970s, or the project to reconcile
practice with theory, as in the recalcitrant anxiety since at least this time of
performance about its own essential inequalities?
Performance, in its various forms as ‘ritual’, ‘art’, ‘happening’ etc, has . . .
sought to remove itself from what Patrick Campbell [sic] has called the theatron
– an ‘institution of active blindness and inactive embodied actor[s]’. [sic]14 . . . It
14. Campbell edited the is not surprising, I would suggest, that within this broad movement the mind–
issue which contains body ‘split’ . . . has become a bodied focus for dissatisfaction with the terms of
Schneider’s (2000)
article. On page 27 the ephemeral contract of theatre. Might then the presence of mind –body
Schneider refers to ‘the discourse in performance . . . be the less-than-fully-conscious forestalling,
institution of active
blindness and inactive frustrating or punishing-by-proxy of theatre’s own apparent insistence on a
vision in the theatron of certain un-equable form?
performance and
rhetorical discourse’.
The present article’s account of ‘habitational action’ and its wider implications
can be viewed as an attempt to respond to this crucial question, which strikes
at the heart of current conceptions of actor training. Sometimes all it takes is
a well-placed question, however polemical and contradictory it may be, to
nudge us into looking at something familiar in an unfamiliar light.

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performative Training Regime of Phillip Zarrilli. Theatre, Dance and Performance
Training, I (2), 214– 228.
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 51

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