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‘It's Never about Me, It's Always about You’: Generosity in Zarrilli's Training Space

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2020

Extract

In his extraordinary essay ‘The Metaphysical Studio’, Phillip Zarrilli advocated for the actor's psychophysical exploration of risky uncertainties and unknown possibilities in the ‘spatio-temporal realm between presence and absence, between “what is” and “what is not” – this liminal realm between’. It was typical of Zarrilli that when he received confirmation that his cancer had returned for the third and final time, he both responded pragmatically and perceived the experience as a philosophically interesting inhabitation of ‘that liminal place between’. Just as ‘The Metaphysical Studio’ emphasizes the actor's investigation of ‘the relationship between that “self” and “others” – the other “selves” that inhabit me; those I might wish to inhabit; the other as “Character”; the interpersonal you-as-other;’ it was also typical that Zarrilli sought to take care of many of the ‘others’ connected with him. These others included a sprawling global training community of students, practitioners and scholars. In a final video call alongside his life and work collaborator Kaite O'Reilly and with more than thirty-five students from around the world who had studied his intercultural performer training at the University of Exeter, Zarrilli stressed, ‘it's never about me, it's always about you’. This stress on ‘you’ was rooted in his emphasis on participants gaining ownership of the training and assimilating it into their own practice, along with a core focus on the other and the collective. During the call, Zarrilli signalled the importance of consistently working within the studio and performance space on strong interpersonal relationships, which ‘can arise when people are learning how to be generous with their energy, with what they can give, with how they can be present to each other. And again, we need more of that in the world’. It is unsurprising that those who participated in Zarrilli's training experienced how that focus on intersubjectivity developed a joyful international and intergenerational community, underpinned by politicized intentions around accessibility, generous group awareness, an ethics of care, and an ability to share the space, which could also be carried into the wider world.

Type
Remembering Phillip Zarrilli (1947–2020)
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2020

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Footnotes

I am extremely grateful to two members of this international community, Duncan Jamieson and Victor Ramirez Ladron De Guevara, who offered invaluable help and suggestions during the process of writing this tribute.

References

NOTES

2 Zarrilli, Phillip B., ‘The Metaphysical Studio’, TDR: The Drama Review, 46, 2 (Summer 2002), pp. 157–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 159.

3 Ibid., p. 161.

4 Alissa Clarke, ‘Phillip Zarrilli in Discussion with University of Exeter Graduates’, Zoom video call, 12 April 2020. Zarrilli taught from 2000 to 2010 at the University of Exeter, where in 2013 he became emeritus professor of performance practice. His training continued to be taught by Rebecca Loukes, a long-term student, collaborator and friend. I undertook the MA Performance Practices (2002–3) and my PhD with Zarrilli (2004–9) at the University of Exeter, and annually attended summer intensive training with him in Wales between 2012 and 2019.

5 Ibid.

6 Phillip Zarrilli, ‘Embodying Awareness in Physical Action’, seminar presentation, The Changing Body Seminar Series: The Bodymind in Contemporary Training and Performance, University of Exeter, 19 January 2005.

7 Prior to his employment at the University of Exeter, Zarrilli taught at UCLA, Northwestern, NYU, and the University of Surrey. From 1979 to 1998 Zarrilli was director of the Asian-Experimental Theatre Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

8 Zarrilli, ‘The Metaphysical Studio’, p. 164.

9 Malayalam is the language of Kerala, the state from which kalarippayattu derives. The vayttari, verbal instructions, are traditionally delivered in Malayalam by the kalarippayattu master/teacher.

10 Alissa Clarke, ‘Phillip Zarrilli in Discussion with the Summer Intensive Training Group’, Tyn-y-parc CVN Kalari/Studio, Llanarth, West Wales, 29 July 2013.

11 Zarrilli, ‘Embodying Awareness in Physical Action’.

12 Alissa Clarke, ‘Phillip Zarrilli in Discussion with the Training Group’, University of Exeter, 6 October 2004.

13 Zarrilli, ‘The Metaphysical Studio’, p. 161.

14 Ibid., pp. 161–2.