Jacques Lecoq (15 December 1921 – 19 January 1999) was a French actor, mime artist, and director who greatly influenced the performing arts in the second half of the twentieth century and is known as the developer of the physical theater method, also known as the “Jacques Lecoq seven levels of tension”.
Lecoq began his studies at the gymnasium at the age of 17 and studied instrumental gymnastics there. According to him, these studies made him understand the geometry of movement and that the movement of the body through space requires it to be completely abstract. Lecoq saw rhythm in athletics as “physical singing.”
In 1941 he was admitted to the “Physical Theater” where he met Jean Marie Conty, a former basketball player who was in charge of sports studies in France. Conty was interested in the connection between sports and theater and as a result was in friendship with Antonin Artaud and Jean-Louis Barrault, both well-known actors and directors and founders of Education par le Jeu Dramatique (“Education through the Dramatic Game”).
While Lecoq still continued to teach physical education for several years, he soon found himself acting as a member of the Comediens de Grenoble. While Lecoq was a part of this company he learned a great deal about Jacques Copeau’s techniques in training. One of these techniques that really influenced Lecoq’s work was the concept of natural gymnastics.
Lecoq taught sports for several years and then played in the Commedia dell’arte in Italy. He lived in Italy for eight years where he was exposed to pantomime, masks, and physical appearances. During that time he appeared as an actor, clown, and playwright.
In 1956 he returned to Paris and founded the “Jacques Lecoq International School of Theater”.
Jacques Lecoq Teaching Method
Lecoq developed the language of physical theater and succeeded, through original pedagogy, in creating a new and original style of theatrical creation. He developed theatrical pedagogy but did not establish it as a method of working for theatrical creative processes.
Lecoq encouraged his students to explore ways of performing, instead of imparting several orderly abilities and preferred to educate for the creativity of the performer. The practice included an emphasis on masks. Initially with natural masks with the thought that they draw attention to the body movements, and then reduced the size of the masks to small accessories like a clown’s nose
The last mask in the series is the red clown nose which is the last step in the student’s process. Because this nose acts as a tiny, neutral mask, this step is often the most challenging and personal for actors. Lecoq believed that every person would develop their clown at this step. He believed that to study the clown is to study oneself, thus no two selves are alike. Three of the principal skills that he encouraged in his students were le jeu (playfulness), complicité (togetherness), and disponibilité (openness).
See below extracts from the lecture-demonstration given by Jacques Lecoq at Wilhelmsbad in 1971 as part of the European Mime Festival.
In the video below, a workshop with Larval Masks as a tool to enhance the body and physical response towards the world and its impulses and to stimulate the actor’s imagination and ability to create a poetic universe in his work.
Jacques Lecoq – Seven Levels of Tension
Lecoq wrote on the art and philosophy of mimicry and miming. He traced mime-like behavior to early childhood development stages, positing that mimicry is a vital behavioral process in which individuals come to know and grasp the world around them. Lecoq also wrote on the subject of gesture specifically and its philosophical relation to meaning, viewing the art of gesture as a linguistic system of sorts. Lecoq classifies gestures into three major groups: gestures of action, expression, and demonstration.
Jacques Lecoq developed an approach to acting using seven levels of tension. These changed and developed during the years, and have been further developed by other practitioners.
The list is not a closed one – there can be as many or as few levels of tension as you like. This is more of a guideline, aid in helping actors slowly move between the different states as that they become comfortable, and begin to explore it in scenes.
Here are the levels of tension, along with a suggestion of a performance style that could represent it.
- Exhausted or catatonic – There is no tension in the body at all. The state begins in a complete state of relaxation. If you have to move or speak, it is a real effort.
- Laidback – the “Californian” style. Everything you do is cool, relaxed, probably lacking in credibility. Think of the dude in “The Big Lebowski“.
- Neutral or the “Economic” – It is what it is. There is nothing more, nothing less. The right amount. No past or future. You are present and aware. It is the state of tension before something happens. Think of a cat sitting comfortably on a wall, ready to leap up if a bird comes near. You move with no story behind your movement.
- Alert or Curious (farce) – Look at things. Sit down. Stand up. Indecision. Think of Jacques Tati or Mr. Bean.
- Suspense or the Reactive (19th-century melodrama) – A crisis is about to happen. All the tension is in the body, concentrated between the eyes. An in-breath. There’s a delay in your reaction. The body reacts. Is there a bomb in the room?
- Passionate (opera) – There is a bomb in the room! The tension has exploded out of the body. Anger, fear, despair. It’s difficult to control.
- Tragic – The body can’t move. Petrified. The body is in solid tension.
Levels 1 to 4 are our everyday states, whereas levels 5 to 7 are melodramatic and extraordinary.
Effect
At Lecoq’s school, students from different countries studied and after their studies they established theater troupes, integrated into existing theaters and even established independent schools that continue their pedagogical path.
Notable students are Annabel Arden, René Bazinet (actor, mime, and clown act creator of Cirque du Soleil), Steven Berkoff(theatre director, actor and writer), Peter Bramley (actor, teacher, theatre director, founder of Pants on Fire), Isla Fisher, Sacha Baron Cohen,
Geoffrey Rush, and Julian Chagrin.