Delsarte system

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Delsarte system (or also Delsartism ) is the name of a large number of movement and declamation education schools that emerged from the teaching of François Delsarte (1811–1871) towards the end of the 19th century . It is about promoting "natural" behavior not only on stage, but also "for yourself" and in society. As a countercurrent to the technically perfected, but sometimes very conservative schools of stage performance, Delsartism became a stimulus for the artistic avant-garde around 1900.

Teaching

Delsarte was one of those avant-gardists who wanted to base the art of acting - and even more generally the art of movement, speaking and singing - on observation of nature in order to break away from traditional rules of representation (linked to class boundaries ). On the one hand he proceeded from the observation of everyday social behavior, on the other hand from the study of anatomy . He often orientated himself on antiquity and developed ideas of a simple, bourgeois classicism, which is reminiscent of the late Goethe (see neo-humanism ).

In an idiosyncratic mixture of occult and early socialist ideas (see Henri de Saint-Simon ), Delsarte designed an image of man that was always divided into three properties based on body , soul and spirit , to which he assigned the colors red, yellow and blue . He divided the postures into eccentric, concentric and normal, from which he developed a system of comparisons between these three basic properties.

These divisions have proven to be fruitful for the analysis and representation of human behavior and as a basis for a movement technique. Delsarte did not want to heal or train his students. He taught that every emotion triggers certain movements and attitudes prescribed by the laws of nature. In this way he trained stage actors, mainly singers and actors. The importance of his method for dance and for various variants of gymnastics (e.g. with Bess Mensendieck ) did not emerge until around 1900.

Aftermath

Because Delsarte was a “name” at the end of the 19th century, some referred to him. Delsarte himself left little written evidence, and his students developed their own methods, which they described as the "Delsarte system". In 1874 a student of Delsarte, the Abbé Delaumosne, was the first to write a book entitled Pratique de l'oratoire de Delsarte ("Practice of Oratory According to Delsarte"). The singer and Delsarte student Alfred Giraudet introduced the Delsarte system in singing training at the Conservatoire de Paris .

From a method of declamation and acting, however, Delsarte's teaching became more and more an instruction in gymnastics and dance. This has to do with Delsartes student Steele MacKaye , who announced a further development of his ideas in the USA. The gymnastics teacher Genevieve Stebbins, who was tutored by MacKaye, wrote a book about it that was published several times in 1885 ( The Delsarte System of Expression ).

Delsarte's importance in rhetoric soon faded. On the one hand, the Delsarte system became an often ridiculed but popular school of gymnastic poses (cf. Tableaux vivants ), on the other hand, it influenced the artistic avant-garde and expressive dance . Dancers and actresses like Isadora Duncan , Eleonora Duse and Ruth St. Denis were influenced by the Delsarte system. The rhythmic education of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze or the Alexander Technique have incorporated suggestions from the Delsarte system, as well as the biomechanics of Wsewolod Meyerhold and the “Psychological Types” by CG Jung .

literature

  • Alfred Giraudet: Mimique. Physionomie et gestes, méthode pratique, d'après le système de F. del Sarte, pour servir à l'expression des sentiments , Paris: Librairies-imprimeries réunies 1895.
  • Geneviève Stebbins: Delsarte System of Expression , Princeton: Dance Horizons 1977. ISBN 0871270951
  • Bernd Wedemeyer-Kolwe: "The new man": body culture in the Empire and in the Weimar Republic , Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2004. ISBN 978-3-8260-2772-7 , p. 65 ff.

See also

Web links