YOSHI OIDA
Yoshi Oida was a Japanese Actor and teacher
He paid attention to the nature of a situation, creating simple and not easily disrupted routes in a scene for your body and mind, for example: repeated actions or focusing on different centres of attention
He believed in an energy balance between the outer expression of the body and the inner activity (emotions and thoughts)
He thought about inner tempo and interior connection, through physical movements. Yoshi Oida found an emotional response to one of his most famous performances, where the repeated movement of just turning his head to a differing tempo evoked an inner emotional reaction that caused him to cry.
We use the work of Yoshi Oida in our warm up processes where we do side stretch, a repeated sequence of movement that prepare us for the world of Everyman, stepping away from the outside world and stepping into the world of our characters.
Yoshi once stated that when acting, it is difficult to create something new as most actors live in the past and don't create on a blank canvas, instead they make decisions based on the past in order to explore and create anew, Oida states this is wrong and is an enemy to true progress, "we stay stuck in the past" because we have "anguish" over where the past is going. This is something I wish to use in the creation of the character of Lay, as the Lay we create will be nothing like the Lay in the real world and the Lay in the other theatre performances because I am not like either one.
Yoshi also said " I think artistic development is not about adding, but taking away".
Yoshi Oida has been acting in Theatre and television since 1953. In 1968 he went to France to work with Peter Brook. In his book "The Invisible Actor" he tells of his time as an actor in Japan. We did an exercise where we had to take 2 different films and create a piece by fusing them together. This was because Oida liked to create fusion theatre, mixing multiple cultures to create something new. We also watched a video of him during a performance where he plays a character who is paralysed on one side of his body. The scene shows him shaving and it was amazing to see how when he moved to the paralysed side of his body, how you can really tell he was paralysed.
He paid attention to the nature of a situation, creating simple and not easily disrupted routes in a scene for your body and mind, for example: repeated actions or focusing on different centres of attention
He believed in an energy balance between the outer expression of the body and the inner activity (emotions and thoughts)
He thought about inner tempo and interior connection, through physical movements. Yoshi Oida found an emotional response to one of his most famous performances, where the repeated movement of just turning his head to a differing tempo evoked an inner emotional reaction that caused him to cry.
We use the work of Yoshi Oida in our warm up processes where we do side stretch, a repeated sequence of movement that prepare us for the world of Everyman, stepping away from the outside world and stepping into the world of our characters.
Yoshi once stated that when acting, it is difficult to create something new as most actors live in the past and don't create on a blank canvas, instead they make decisions based on the past in order to explore and create anew, Oida states this is wrong and is an enemy to true progress, "we stay stuck in the past" because we have "anguish" over where the past is going. This is something I wish to use in the creation of the character of Lay, as the Lay we create will be nothing like the Lay in the real world and the Lay in the other theatre performances because I am not like either one.
Yoshi also said " I think artistic development is not about adding, but taking away".
Yoshi Oida has been acting in Theatre and television since 1953. In 1968 he went to France to work with Peter Brook. In his book "The Invisible Actor" he tells of his time as an actor in Japan. We did an exercise where we had to take 2 different films and create a piece by fusing them together. This was because Oida liked to create fusion theatre, mixing multiple cultures to create something new. We also watched a video of him during a performance where he plays a character who is paralysed on one side of his body. The scene shows him shaving and it was amazing to see how when he moved to the paralysed side of his body, how you can really tell he was paralysed.
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