Tadashi Suzuki

Tadashi Suzuki is a director, writer, and theorist based in Toga, Toyama, Japan. He is the founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT), Chairman of the Japan Performing Arts Foundation (JPAF), Artistic Director of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC), and co-founder of the SITI (Saratoga International Theatre Institute) Company in New York. In addition to these professional qualifications, Suzuki is the creator of his own method of actor training.

The Suzuki method (not to be confused with the violin training method of the same name) is an eclectic, hybrid approach to performance. While it takes much of its structure from the two classical forms of Japanese theater - Noh and Kabuki - Suzuki is a progressive artist who has always sought to revitalize theater by redefining traditional forms and developing innovative modes of performance. He is a scholar of the classical Greek theater, and has adapted many of its conventions to his own purposes; he also has a long-standing working relationship with Anne Bogart - co-founder, with Suzuki, of the SITI Company, and an instrumental figure in the development of the Viewpoints method (SITI uses both Viewpoints and the Suzuki method in its training programs).

Suzuki training is a rigorous physical and vocal regimen which centers on the relationship between human beings and the earth. Using a series of exercises focused on the lower body (including a particular form of rhythmic stomping), Suzuki encourages actors to foster this relationship by sending and receiving energy to and from the earth. The goal of the training, which requires a high level of physical exertion and bodily control, is to sharpen the actor’s perceptive abilities and to realize the body’s full potential as a tool of theatrical expression (in Suzuki’s language, to restore the “wholeness” of the connection between body and earth).

Conservatory schools and theater companies the world over (among them the Juilliard School and the Royal Shakespeare Company) have incorporated Suzuki training into their programs alongside their established techniques. The most direct way, however, to study the Suzuki method is by taking one of the summer workshops offered by the SITI Company. These workshops - which include both Viewpoints and Suzuki training - are conducted in various North American cities (often including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Toronto). In addition, training intensives are offered at the company’s Manhattan studio in the spring and the fall, with classes for beginning and advanced students. SITI also offers a summer intensive for sixty actors, directors, writers, designers, choreographers, and dancers at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, with a focus on developing new work. To request a brochure, send an e-mail to inbox@siti.org

SITI Company
http://www.siti.org
520 8^th Avenue, Suite 310
New York, NY 10018
Phone: (212) 868-0860
Fax: (212) 868-0837
E-mail: inbox@siti.org

Further reading:

Allain, Paul
The Art of Stillness: The Theatre Practice of Tadashi Suzuki

Suzuki, Tadashi
The Way of Acting
(translated by J.T. Rimer)

Note
The following are common misspellings of Tadashi Suzuki's name: Todoshi, Todashi, Tadoshi, Tadashy, Todoshy, Todashy, Tadoshy, Tadashii, Tadashie, Todoshie, Todashie, Todoshie, Suzuky, Susuky, Suzukie, Susukie, Suzukii, Suesuki, Suesukie, Zuzuski, Soozooki