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Zygmunt Molik’s Voice and Body Work: The Legacy of Jerzy Grotowski

The publication is the result of field research conducted in Poland, France and the UK, which in turn came out of Campo’s role as research associate for the AHRC-funded British Grotowski Project based at the University of Kent. The book/DVD has been translated into Portuguese and was published by É-Realizações, São Paulo in 2012. Two of the films are now available in the Routledge Performance Archive.

The leading actor of Grotowski’s ‘Teatr Laboratorium’, Molik is a uniquely significant figure in the field of actor training. This book, based on conversations and practical work with Molik over a period of several years, aims to preserve elements of Molik’s system, and by extension Grotowski’s practice. But the book goes much further than mere documentation; its research questions focus on the nature of theatrical knowledge itself, and on challenging the way it is transmitted. Fictionally presented as a series of nine sessions, the book illustrates the pedagogical dialogue between master and pupil, and the process of learning and transmitting skills, typical of a certain theatre tradition. The result of an extremely close collaboration between researcher and subject, the text is conceived organically, as an innovative kind of Tavianian ‘theatre in book-form’, one that is derived directly from that of Grotowski’s own “Towards a poor theatre”.

Relationship of book and DVD

The accompanying film, “Zygmunt Molik’s Body Alphabet” (2009, directed by Campo), is a necessary complement of the book in that it represents the only extant, accurate description of technical details of the system that forms the object of the research. Here, performer Jorge Parente illustrates the various stages of Molik’s methodology aimed at opening the actor’s voice and creative energies. The film ends with a commentary, prompted and edited by Campo, by Molik himself on the film and the legacy of his work.

Also featured on the DVD are the films “Dyrygent” (2006), which illustrates Molik’s working methods with a group of pupils, and “Acting Therapy” (1976), which explores his role in the ‘Theatre of Participation’, as well as an extensive photo gallery documenting his life and work.