The Actor as Observer-Participant

Abstract

This article pays tribute to the life and work of Mary Overlie, the performer, choreographer, teacher and originator of The Viewpoints theory and practice. Developed in the downtown interdisciplinary experimental arts scene of the SoHo district in 1970s, The Viewpoints has become a staple of actor training programs. Here, I consider the legacy of Overlie’s work through three memories of her teaching and an explication of her concept of the ‘observer-participant’.

Notes

1 On the Viewpoint of Emotion and The Piano laboratory see Overlie (2016) and Perucci (2015, 2021).

2 Rainer’s concerns that arose from dance investigations were similarly articulated with theatre. Rainer introduces her ‘NO Manifesto’ as ‘a very large NO to many facts in theatre today’ (1965: 178). Mary often identified seeing Rainer perform with the seminal dance collective the Grand Union as her inspiration to relocate to New York City. She later performed in works by Rainer and The Grand Union at 112 Greene St in New York and at Oberlin College, Ohio.

3 In On the Horizontal (forthcoming), I include a broader field of such approaches, including my own, ‘The New Thing’. See also, Perucci (2018).