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ABSTRACT
“Relationship, paradoxical curiosity, creativity and risk” are four elements identified John Paul Lederach as necessary for peacebuilding and conflict transformation. The ability to imagine a web of relationships, to be curious about people and their lives as well as being able to image the “other” and take risks are all qualities actors learn through studying Stanislavski’s methodology. Based on the first stage of a research project with LAMDA acting students in their second year of drama training this paper explores what Stanislavski’s teachings of “given circumstances” and the magic “if” can contribute to the world of conflict transformation. Actors learn to transfer their skills and apply them to work outside the theatre context, which in turn help them reflect on their own development as actors. This paper investigates the intersection of Stanislavski-based actor training and peacebuilding discovering actors’ transferable skills and exploring areas such as the multiple perspectives and complex interrelated dynamics of conflict, our positionality, the potential to transform interdependent relationships, and the tools to analyse and transform narratives. It examines how the magic “if” can stimulate deeper understanding and help make the imaginative creative leap necessary to find transcendent solutions to complex conflicts.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Stanislavski, An Actor’s Work, 53.
2. John Paul Lederach is widely known for his pioneering work in conflict transformation. Both academic and practitioner he is engaged in long-term bottom-up grassroots peacebuilding and reconciliation work internationally (Somalia, Northern Ireland, Columbia, Nicaragua and Nepal) and on community level.John Paul Lederach is widely known for his pioneering work in conflict transformation. Both academic and practitioner he is engaged in long-term bottom-up grassroots peacebuilding and reconciliation work internationally (Somalia, Northern Ireland, Columbia, Nicaragua and Nepal) and on community level.
3. Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 33–40.
4. Mirodan, The Actor, 1.
5. Johan Galtung is a principle founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. He has made significant contributions to peace research and practice working internationally world-wide, and he has developed the TRANSCEND methodology of conflict transformation to address underlying structures and cultures of violence.
6. Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall, Contemporary Conflict Resolution, 7–10.
7. Galtung and Jacobsen, Searching for Peace, 107–108.
8. Levinger, Conflict Analysis, 113.
9. Ibid., 113.
10. Stanislavski, An Actor’s Work, 87.
11. Mirodan, The Actor, i.
12. Stanislavski, An Actor’s Work, 54.
13. Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall, Contemporary Conflict Resolution, 317.
14. By Doreen Cannon, then Head of Acting and trained by Uta Hagen.
15. Stanislavski, Creating a Role, 4.
16. All quoted material emanates from workshop participants in research at LAMDA, held in June 2018.
17. Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 89.
18. Phelps, Shattered Voices, 55.
19. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, 281.
20. Benedetti, Stanislavski, 57–61.
21. Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 36.
22. Stanislavski, Creating a Role, 20.
23. Ibid., 11.
24. Boal, Games, 165–77.
25. Mirodan, The Actor, 163–80.
26. Hallmark, Alexander Technique, 11.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Olivia Fuchs
Olivia Fuchs is a freelance opera and theatre director who has directed in all of the major UK opera houses and for many companies internationally.
She also leads workshops, teaches and facilitates, and has made work with non-professionals in the community, schools and prison. She has recently completed a MA in “Reconciliation and Peacebuilding” at Winchester University and works together with Penny Cherns on Dramatic Solutions.
Penny Cherns
Penny Cherns trained on the Directors’ Course at the Drama Centre after completing a sociology degree at the University of Kent at Canterbury. She worked as Joan Littlewood’s assistant and then as a freelance director in major repertory theatres, the RSC and the Royal Court as well as directing dramas for the BBC and Channel 4 television. She gained an MSc in European Studies from the LSE, has taught and directed internationally and is currently Senior Tutor and the Head of the MA in Classical Acting course at LAMDA.