Keywords in performer training

More a collection of reflections and provocations than an essay, 'Keywords in performer training' identifies 12 words or phrases which are in common usage in contemporary performance training and examines the various and often conflicting usages which are attached to them. Explicitly following Raymond Williams' ground-breaking 1976 publication Keywords, the essay scrutinises and scans the contemporary treatment of these words, and how they are used and misused in the vernacular of theatre and performance training practices. It does not seek to provide definitive meaning to the keywords and - deliberately - leaves many questions unanswered, in the spirit of provoking and animating conversation as to how these terms shift and become contested as cultural, pedagogical and ideological conditions change.