Viewpoints

Viewpoints is an improvisation-based technique that provides actors with a tool box and vocabulary for exploring a play through movement and gesture. Originally developed in the 1970’s by choreographer Mary Overlie, the Viewpoints method was adapted for actors by director Anne Bogart and playwright-director Tina Landau.

There are six Viewpoints - space, shape, time, emotion, movement, and story. In her work with actors, Bogart tends to throw out story and emotion; since these elements are fundamental to an actor’s mindset, Bogart sees little need to isolate them as Viewpoints. The basic principle of Viewpoints training - in both Overlie’s and Bogart’s work - is to allow the performer to work on isolated issues that lie outside the standard narrative framework of modernist acting. “Instead of beginning with the idea of making theater,” Overlie states, “this approach begins with taking theater apart.”

Overlie continues: “The Viewpoints process reduces performance to a code. This code acts like a flexible measuring device, much like a transit and rod used in surveying for mapping land. The Viewpoints, like the transit and rod, were devised to reveal structure… The structure we see through the Viewpoints is made in six basic windows of perception that are used to create and view theater.”

The Viewpoints belong to the post-modern tradition, in that there is no hierarchy amongst the six elements (diverging from the classical and modern periods, where story tended to take precedent over all the other aspects of play-making). The Viewpoints, when employed in performance, influence each other and work together - for example, a certain movement or gesture may naturally inspire a certain emotion - but before reaching this stage, performers must first focus on each Viewpoint as an isolated element. Performers will often find that one of the Viewpoints comes naturally to them, and they can then use their comfort with that element to access and work through the less familiar elements.

Space
The first Viewpoint focuses on awareness of the environment. This includes the physical space in which you are working - the architecture and empty space around you, including permanent and non-permanent features. It also involves spatial relationships - distance between objects on stage, between bodies and groups of bodies, and between bodies and objects/architecture. Finally, it involves movement within this space (over the floor or landscape or within the physical environment). A popular exercise in working on this Viewpoint is very simply walking and stopping in the space around you.

Shape
The second Viewpoint is best worked on in pairs, and focuses on awareness of bodies - yours and your partner’s. Topics for observation include the shape of the body itself, the contour or outline of bodies in space, the body’s relationship to other bodies or to the objects/architecture on stage, and the use of gesture. In one popular exercise, the first actor creates a shape - realistic or abstract - with his body. The second actor then observes the first actor, and responds instinctively with a shape of his own. The first actor, in turn, observes the second, creating another new shape, and so on - creating a “shape conversation” of sorts, which may eventually speed up and overlap.

Time
The third Viewpoint focuses on time and various ways of regulating it. This includes tempo (how fast or slow a movement occurs), duration (how long the movement takes before ending or changing), repetition (of movements that occur both inside and outside one’s own body), and reactions to movements occurring outside of one’s body (instinctive responses to natural stimuli, which is known as “kinesthetic response.”) Mary Overlie says, “Adjusting to playing with time expands the actor’s ability to place
emphasis, express nuance, and keep everything alive on stage.” A good way to work on is to repeat the spatial awareness exercise - simply walking and stopping in space - putting the focus on tempo, time spent walking versus time spent standing still, and other elements of time and timing.

Emotion
Anne Bogart discards the fourth Viewpoint in her work, since actors spend so much time focusing on it as a matter of course. Every acting teacher has a separate set of exercises geared towards developing character-driven emotional depth and emotional connection between actors; the fundamental goal of such exercises lies in being able to surrender yourself emotionally both to your partner(s) and to the audience for whom you are
performing. The ability to lay yourself open - to make yourself vulnerable and available to your fellow actors and your viewers - is cardinally important work for any actor.

Movement
The fifth Viewpoint focuses on movement of the body in and of itself - different types of movement, different ways of moving, and the movement of different body parts. It is important while working on this element to “let your body do what it wants,” rather than organizing, formalizing, or pre-meditating your movement. The goal is to strengthen the connections between feeling and action.

Story
The final Viewpoint - also discarded in Bogart’s work - focuses on the ability to function as an individual within a multi-dimensional environment. Short-form improvisation and improv games are a good way to build up these skills - the necessity of “going with the flow,” without the chance to pre-meditate your decisions, often opens up a new sense of freedom and self-confidence. Working in a group, improvise a story and let it go where it wants to, allowing it to change radically as it goes. Do not feel bound by sequential logic or consistency - focus instead on staying open to the evolving situation.

The Viewpoints approach - which Overlie refers to as “deconstructive theater” - is not meant to turn an actor into a machine performing a series of pre-programmed exercises. Rather, the principle is to give the actor a fuller understanding of his place in the world (and, by extension, in the world of the play). Overlie explains, “The whole is broken down into its basic materials and their languages. This activity has to be done with great care and respect for the whole. It is essential to know where the seams lay so separating can be done with clarity; otherwise the materials and their languages may be ruined, making it impossible to deal with them in their integrity.”

Most theater schools use some form of Viewpoints training - or at least some of its elements - in their pedagogy. The best way by far, however, to study the Viewpoints method is to go straight to the source by taking one of the summer workshops offered by the SITI (Saratoga International Theatre Institute) Company, co-founded by Bogart and renowned Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. 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

In addition to the SITI workshops, Mary Overlie also periodically offers lectures on the six Viewpoints at the studios of contemporary dance company Mabou Mines in New York City. These lectures can often be combined with workshops co-taught by Overlie and Terry O’Reilly. For more information, e-mail OverlieOreillyworks@hotmail.com

Further reading:

Bogart, Anne
A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre

Bogart, Anne
And Then, You Act: Making Art in an Unpredictable World

Bogart, Anne with Tina Landau
The Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints

Dixon, Michael Bigelow with Joel A. Smith
Anne Bogart: Viewpoints

Overlie, Mary
“The Six Viewpoints: A Deconstructive Approach to Theater”