Lecture Notes: Performance, Masks, and Trance States

Overview

• Importance of spontaneity in performance.
• Chaplin's ability to work with children by being instinctive, not acting.

Working with Children and Animals

• Children and animals work instinctively on stage, unlike adults who act.
• Successful interaction involves being like children: playing, making it real, switching off the internal voice.

Masks in Performance

• Masks help actors become different characters by focusing on the present moment.
• Masks allow actors to perform without overthinking and achieve authenticity.
• Comparison with hypnotized individuals who can achieve more due to focused attention.

Hypnosis and Awareness

• Hypnotized individuals can notice more details than in a normal state.
• Research from the 1950s shows increased awareness under hypnosis.
• Contemporary connections to brain research and literature (e.g., "Blink").

Trance States in Creativity

• Trance states result in spontaneous creativity.
• Voice in the head stops, allowing for true spontaneity.
• Artists and actors often work in trance states, although culture undervalues it.
• Flow state enables uninterrupted creative output.

Challenges in Artistic Creativity

• Internal voice can be a barrier to creativity (e.g., self-criticism).
• Importance of bypassing the critical voice for artistic freedom.

Cultural Views on Trance

• Modern culture is skeptical or dismissive of trance states.
• Historical evidence of hypnosis achieving significant outcomes (e.g., surgery in the 1850s).
• Contemporary skepticism is seen as ironic given historical precedents.