【The Âtre 】：關於觀點

The Âtre Issue 14 (June 2023) https://www.the-atre.com/

每次進行觀點訓練（Viewpoints）工作坊，面對一群充滿期待，蠢蠢欲動的學員們，我都會對他們說，第一堂課，我們坐下，一起看空間。

空間，有什麼好看？

看地板，看門牆，看窗，看燈管，看其他學員們煞有介事地觀看空間…… 大家的心開始不安。我們是來演戲的，為什麼坐在這裡看著虛無。

看空間以後，在空間內設定了工作範圍，邀請學員們一個個輪流踏入「舞台」，站著，不動。其他學員們則練習觀看，看空間裡一個如如不動的身軀。

舞台如白紙。一個一個的身軀，輪流佇立在「白紙」上，像是在宣紙上滴墨。慢慢地，邀請更多人一起站在空間裡，一點一點的「墨滴」，形成了一幅畫。每個學員都是自主的個體，有意識地「作畫」（composition），集體創作。

這樣一堂課，可以花上好久的時間。

「看」，是觀點訓練的關鍵。

練習觀看、觀察、靜心凝望，與空間進行語言之外的對話。

漸漸地，除了門牆窗戶、除了地板天花板，其他的細節也會出現在眼前：空間的深度、寬度、燈光的色澤、空間的影子、線條…… 

好玩的是，這一切本就都存在於排練空間裡。觀點訓練讓演員在最熟悉最日常的事物中重獲「發現」的能力與樂趣。

所以更準確地說，「無預期地看」，是觀點訓練的關鍵。不妄下判斷，除去自己心裡對這個世界固有的「我知道」和「想當然」。

一旦練習「無預期地看」，便是打開了心理空間，通過覺察的能力，讓自己有更多的發現。

觀點訓練是解構的方法。觀點的發現者Mary Overlie（她堅信觀點不是她發明出來的，觀點是本來就已經存在的現象，只是被她發現罷了）把「表演」解構成六個元素（時間、空間、形狀、身體運動、情感、故事）。這「六觀點」的本質是橫向的。情形就像一串被扔在桌面上的鑰匙，所有鑰匙的價值平等。

在這樣的橫向結構中，每一個元素的作用不同，但價值一樣。在訓練時，表演者和其他表演元素亦是相同。我們擺脫了演員至上、或導演至上、或台詞/故事至上的固有縱向結構。

解構，是為了平權。當每個表演元素都被賦權，創作者就有更多探索與發現的可能性。

我愈發覺得，我可將觀點稱之為「觀照的藝術」（The Art of Noticing）。演員在觀照中，體察外界，發現自己的盲點、偏好、執著、習性。

掌握了觀照的藝術，演員獲得了自主，無需過於依賴導演為其給予指導；甚至可以與導演一起共創表演。

演員們先學習看、繼而學習聽，爾後學習佇立於空間。之後再學習行、走、坐、臥；練習發聲、對話…… 在越來越複雜的要求下，他們必須依然保持觀照的能力。

演員成了異常敏感的感受體/共鳴器，善於接收從四面八方而來的訊息。

所以，觀點訓練也未必是看、也未必是聽、也未必是行走坐臥的訓練，而是感應力的練習。觀點訓練的演員在練習讓周身有感應，讓身心隨感而發、有觸必應。

觀點，應該稱之為「感應的藝術」（The Art of Vibrancy）。

前文一大串文字，竟成了滿紙空言。

但面對無形無相、無招無式的觀點訓練，這麼一番假語村言，似乎亦不為過呢。

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The Âtre Issue 14 (June 2023) https://www.the-atre.com/

“A Viewpoint on the Viewpoints”

Text / Neo Hai Bin

The first thing I do in Viewpoints workshops would be to tell a group of eager participants to sit down, and look at "space".

What is there to see?

We look at the floor, the doors, the walls, the windows, the lamps... We looked at the other participants who are leaning forward and looking at space as if with great interest... A general sense of unease set in. Participants are here to study actor’s training, and yet here we are, sitting and looking at… Nothingness.

Then we would set up a "playing area" in the space. Participants can choose to step onto the “playing area", one by one, and stand in space. The other participants would practise looking again— watching still bodies in space.

The “playing area" resembles a blank canvas. One by one, different bodies take turns to stand on the canvas, almost like how one drips ink on rice paper so that one can study how the ink seeps into the paper and spreads itself across space. Slowly, more people are invited to stand in space; together, the "drops of ink" form an ink painting. Each participant is an autonomous individual, making decisions, creating something collectively, a “composition”. All they do is to stand in space, and look.

A session like this can take a long time.

To learn how to “look” is integral to the Viewpoints.

To practice looking- or rather, to practice watching, observing, investigating. To engage in a dialogue with the space, practicing something that exist outside the realm of language.

Gradually, apart from the doors, the walls, windows, floor and ceiling, other details in space creeps into view: the depth and width of the space, the color of the light, the shadows cast on walls, the near-invisible lines on the floor... 

It is fun, because these details were already in space even before we enter the space. The Viewpoints let actors regain the ability to “discover", and to experience the pure joy of investigating the familiar and the everyday.

Perhaps the Viewpoints is not about “looking for something”, but to practice “seeing what is already there in time and space”. To see without expectation, without judgments, removing all traces of know-hows and assumptions that is often inherent in one's mind as one interacts with the world. It is then one opens up the possibility of making discoveries through one's ability to be aware.

The Viewpoints is a method of deconstruction. Mary Overlie, the founder of Viewpoints (she believed that the Viewpoints is not an invention, but rather a discovery of phenomena that already existed), deconstructed physical performance into six materials of composition (time, space, shape, body movement, emotion, story). The six Viewpoints is a horizontal structure of performance making. Think of the six Viewpoints as a bunch of keys, each key representing the six materials, and when the keys are placed on the table top, their values are equal, none more nor lesser than another.

In such a horizontal structure, each component with different roles are of equal intrinsic value. The same is true for all the other elements of performance. With the six Viewpoints, the performance-maker is liberated from the tyranny of the vertical structure where often the actor is made to be the most important, or the director is made to be the most important, or the text/story are the most important...

Deconstruction is an act of affirmative action. When every element of performance is empowered, creators opened up more possibilities for explorations and revelations.

What I have come to realize is that I can in fact call this "The Art of Noticing". In the act of noticing, the actor perceives the outside world, and discovers his or her own blind spots, preferences, obsessions, and habits.

By mastering the art of noticing, the actor gains autonomy and does not have to rely too much on the director to give him/her instructions; he/she can even co-create the performance with the director.

Actors first learn to see, then to hear, then to stand in space. They learn to walk, to sit, to lie down, to practice speaking, to be in conversation... Under increasingly complex demands, they must maintain the ability to notice.

The actor becomes an extremely sensitive receptor/resonator, adept at picking up information flowing in from all directions.

Therefore, the Viewpoints is also not necessarily a training in seeing, listening, walking, sitting or lying down, but a training in the capacity to perceive and feel. Performers are practicing to allow their body and mind to feel and respond to sensations.

And hence I realised that the Viewpoints is in fact more than a practice of noticing. It is, in fact, “The Art of Vibrancy".

The aforementioned has turned out to be nothing but empty words.

And yet, for such a formless training as the Viewpoints, it may be fitting for a full essay on its implicit nature of “nothing”, and “no-thing”.