Face to face with the neutral mask - Sharing the practical knowledge of mask teachers
Ann Karin Orset PhD-student Centre of Practical Knowledge, Faculty of Professional Studies
at the University of Nordland
The use of mask as a teaching tool in actor training is not a new phenomenon; however, there
is a great number of teachers that are not familiar with this area of didactic work. In my
research project I want to examine the practice represented by the use of neutral mask work,
and what constitutes the practice of mask pedagogues. These are my temporary research
questions:
1. What constitutes the mask teacher’s practical knowledge?
2. What are the didactic challenges and benefits using neutral mask as a teaching tool in
actor training?
The use of masks in actor training is traced back to Jacques Copeau in the 1920s. He
envisioned a theater, contrary to what was common at his time, with actors using a more
direct and physical body language. Copeau called for a different approach to the text,
distancing himself and his actors from the more traditional declamation at that time. In an
attempt to make the actor more physically expressive, he let the actors improvise with a mask
with little extend of expression; the noble mask. Improvising with this mask proved to have a
positive effect on the actor's stage present. It increased the actor’s awareness of both her
physical expression, as well as her expressive resources. Furthermore, it helped to establish a
state of calmness and presence that served as a starting point for the actor's future work.
One of Copeau’s successors in the use of mask in actor training is the French
pedagogue, choreographer and instructor Jacques Lecoq. It was him, together with the Italian
sculptor Amleto Sartori, that developed and gave form to the neutral mask in the early 1950s.
The neutral mask soon became a cornerstone in the curriculum at Lecoq’s school in Paris, and
furthermore in what is called the Lecoq teaching tradition.
Using neutral mask as a teaching tool is motivated by the idea that improvising in this
mask may help the student establish an ideal psychophysical “neutral” condition that may
help her establish a state of high degree of physical and mental presence, which further on can
strengthen her stage presence. The neutral condition may also serve as a starting point or basis
for her creative work.
Despite the different ways of teaching Lecoq’s neutral mask, and the huge number of
people that have taken part in neutral mask training, there is a very limited number
practitioners that have actually written about their experience of using it. Theory related to the
didactic challenges concerning neutral mask teaching is even a rarer find. The lack of research
and academic work on the neutral mask is one of my driving forces behind my research
project. This relates particularly to the common agreement that the teacher’s pedagogical role,
and her way of teaching, is of major importance for the students’ experience of the learning
situation.
Improvising with neutral mask is a specific experience, yet at the same time it can be
perceived as quite abstract when trying to put words on it. This circumstance puts the mask
teacher in front of quite complex didactic challenges. My experience is that the mask
teachers’ knowledge is both intellectual, situational and an experience related to the physical
body itself. Very often I find it hard myself to explain this in already established terms. This
motivates my ambition to pay attention to the practical knowledge of the mask teacher in my
project. Being a mask teacher is very often a non spoken practice that is both difficult and
challenging to describe, and that has been traditionally handed through generations in actor
training programs as a practice, without being tied in to any extensive theoretical approach.
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Personally, I find that it is important to try to further investigate the practice
represented by the teaching of the neutral mask, and study characteristics of the body based
and often non-verbal knowledge, which is both critical and absolutely necessary for teaching
this mask. In my research I will draw on my own practical experiences of the neutral mask,
using the essay as a critical examination method. This gives me as researcher the ability to
share and write on the practical knowledge that is held by me. By focusing on the practical
knowledge that I possess, the method paves the way for me to reflect on both my role as well
as my work as practitioner in the educational field.
As part of my research project I will undertake research conversations together with
four colleagues who teach neutral mask at actor training programs abroad. Hopefully, this will
gain access to new perspectives of this teaching tradition, contribute to a better and clearer
understanding of the mask pedagogue’s very complex and practical knowledge, all of which
is essential for teaching the neutral mask. This way my informants and I may be able to
develop the theatre field and make the use of neutral mask in actor training more accessible
than it is today.
Keywords: Mask, tacit knowledge, theater, actor training, didactic
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