On the Art of Acting. Mihai Filip Odangiu, “Corpul inteligent. Strategii metacognitive în antrenamentul actorului / The Mindful Body. Metacognitive Strategies in Actor’s Training” (203 p.) and “Praxis. Exercițiul strategic / Praxis. Strategic Exercise” (288 p.), Cluj-Napoca, Casa Cărții de Știință, 2013*

* Translated by Magda Crețu.

Abstract

Actor and plastic artist, assistant professor at the Faculty of Theater and Television of Cluj-Napoca, where he is teaching acting, with almost fifteen years of pedagogic experience, Mihai Filip Odangiu has become an important reference in the history of Romanian theatrical studies, with the publication, in 2013, of the two books on stage art pedagogy, Corpul inteligent. Strategii metacognitive în antrenamentul actorului [The Mindful Body. Metacognitive Strategies in Actor’s Training] and Praxis. Exercițiul strategic [Praxis. Strategic Exercise]. The volumes – taken from what had been the original doctoral thesis – are, in the author’s words, a “diptych”. Its first part approaches the issue of actor’s training from a theoretical perspective, while the second part focuses, as shown by the title, on the practical applications of the previously listed principles. They are illustrated (sometimes literally) by a series of 132 exercises, described in an order that is not at all accidental (according to “families of exercises”) and extensively discussed (by indicating the source, by establishing the origin, where possible, by describing the objectives, the activities as such involved by each exercise, by formulating suggestions in relation to side coaching and to evaluation, by indicating filiations, possibilities of development, by explaining some concepts and some of the terms used and so on and so forth). Among the references cited by the author a privileged position is occupied by the works of Michael Chekhov, Viola Spolin, Rudolf Laban, David Zinder, Robert Cohen, Jean Benedetti, Declan Donellan, Rhonda Blair, Richard J. Kemp or Anne Bogart and Tina Landau, since their approaching to the training of the actors are, according to the author, in line with “the most recent findings of neurosciences and humanities”, which open, as put by Richard J. Kemp, “new perspectives” on the performer’s arts; these perspectives are discussed in one of the most inciting chapters of the first volume.