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<DIV>Below is an exerpt from an interview with Robert Lepage --in it lepage
talks about the influence of Alain Knapp on his own work. You can read the whole
interview at: <A
href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/lepage_transcript.shtml">http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/lepage_transcript.shtml</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There is a book (in French) by Knapp also: <A
href="http://www.amazon.ca/K-une-%C3%A9cole-cr%C3%A9ation-th%C3%A9%C3%A2trale/dp/286943376X/ref=sr_1_1/184-5341507-6480401?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257440194&sr=1-1">A.K.
une école de la création théâtrale</A> <SPAN class=ptBrand>by Alain
Knapp</SPAN><SPAN class=binding> (<SPAN class=format>Paperback</SPAN> - Aug 12
1993)</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=binding>
<LI><B>Paperback:</B> 200 pages</LI>
<LI><B>Publisher:</B> Actes-Sud (Aug 12 1993)</LI>
<LI><B>Language:</B> French</LI>
<LI><B>ISBN-10:</B> 286943376X</LI>
<LI><B>ISBN-13:</B> 978-2869433762</LI></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN onmouseover=_tipon(this) onmouseout=_tipoff()>Back cover of Knapp
book:</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN onmouseover=_tipon(this) onmouseout=_tipoff()></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN onmouseover=_tipon(this) onmouseout=_tipoff()>"What appears in the
pages of this book is that the acquisition of power created in the performance
theater predisposes an ability to create a broad plan otherwise: that his
behavior in the world . From this point of view, the work of Knapp is in line
with mirror-works, from Plato through Montaigne, Chateaubriand, Rousseau, add to
our understanding of the universal. "Vinaver (extract the preface) Alain Knapp
has taught theater for twenty years.</SPAN> <SPAN onmouseover=_tipon(this)
onmouseout=_tipoff()><SPAN class=google-src-text
style="DIRECTION: ltr; TEXT-ALIGN: left">Nous entrons, avec cet ouvrage écrit
sous forme dialoguée, dans l'intimité de son cours de " création théâtrale ",
lent cheminement attentif pour faire naître les situations, les enjeux, les
complexités, et arriver à une richesse de matériau telle que le dialogue
théâtral puisse à la fin s'esquisser.</SPAN> We went with this book is written
in dialogue form, in the privacy of his being "theatrical creation, slow journey
attentive to situations arise, issues, complexities, and reach a wealth of
material such as dialogue theater can take shape at the end.</SPAN> <SPAN
onmouseover=_tipon(this) onmouseout=_tipoff()><SPAN class=google-src-text
style="DIRECTION: ltr; TEXT-ALIGN: left">Il s'agit d'un processus d'exploration
: la recherche de la théâtralité par entraînement guidé, " l'activation " des
pouvoirs imaginants, le plaisir de l'invention.</SPAN> It is a process of
exploration: the search for theatrical training guided by "activation" of being
able to imagine the pleasure of the invention.</SPAN> <SPAN
onmouseover=_tipon(this) onmouseout=_tipoff()><SPAN class=google-src-text
style="DIRECTION: ltr; TEXT-ALIGN: left">Tous ceux qui sont à la recherche de la
qualité et de l'exigence dans l'exercice du théâtre trouveront là le récit d'une
pratique et des propositions concrètes d'exercices.</SPAN> All those who are
looking for quality and demand in the year the theater will find here an account
of a practical and concrete proposals for years.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>From Lepage interview:</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><EM>I also want to go back a bit to 1978, you moved to Paris,
you studied with a man called Alain Knapp. Now what did he really teach
you?<BR><BR></EM>Well I think that what was interesting is it was in, it was in
the years of where everybody believed a lot in improv, and improv was a very,
very vague and messy thing. People just went up there and improv-d on different
themes and, and the actual improv event had an importance in itself. With Alain
Knapp what was interesting is that it was a kind of improv that was extremely
structured so you were actually writing as you were going on, and a lot of
people who would see performances made up of improvs thought that they were
actually prewritten and they were not, so it was a very sophisticated refined
kind of improv and, and that really, really stimulated me into working in, in
that direction, and it was all based on intuition, not a lot on intellect, and
in those days we were in the days of political theatre and people were using
theatre as a vehicle for political ideas and philosophies and, and things were
happening from the neck up and I was very interested in trying to find, to be
more in touch with my intuitions and Alain Knapp had different exercises and
different ways to put you in, in touch with
that. <BR> <BR><EM><U></U>Did that seem to come naturally to you or
did that originally come as a shock, this invitation to be true to your
instinct?</EM> <BR> <BR><U></U>It, it came as a shock because what
drew me to theatre was the theatre that I saw and it was a, a theatre of words,
a theatre of ideas, a theatre of the intellect a lot, and suddenly I was, I felt
much more familiar and much more, it was much more close to me to actually just
let go and, and indulge into, into my intuitions, and they brought me on, on
paths that I never would have imagined before, so suddenly all the
possibilities, everything was possible. <BR> <BR><EM><U></U>Was it
anti-intellectual or just non-intellectual?</EM> <BR><BR>It was, it was
non-intellectual, not anti-intellectual, and I'd say that it had a lot to do
with the fact that you know if, if one was interested in doing some collective
work, people, nobody ever took into account let's say if we would be using a
theme like war for example and say well let's do a show about war, nobody took
into account the fact that the collectivity was made of people from different
classes, who had different experiences, sometimes different cultures, and war
doesn't necessarily relate to them in the same way, so in order to have a
communal piece of art you have to do a lot of compromises, you have to put a lot
of water in your wine. By working with non-intellectual themes and just images
or objects or impressions you, you do not debate impressions. I cannot be
confronting your impressions, your impressions are your impressions and mine are
mine, so, so it was a much more open and, and a richer way of working than
working from themes and intellectual
ideas. </FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>