Beyond the Black Box: The Lecoq School training in relation to Social and Environmental Practices and Activism

The Lecoq School in Paris (and more recently in Avignon) has been renowned for training students in the movement practices developed by its founder, Jacques Lecoq. For nearly 70 years now, the school has trained hundreds of students from around the world. Our recent research has been into the legacy and applicability of Lecoq’s work as a pedagogy for supporting contemporary/21st century socially and environmentally engaged theatre making. We have started to examine the ways in which the training at the school has been applied by Lecoq graduates in a range of social, political, cultural, environmental and ecological contexts. Our paper will examine the work of a sample of such companies, including: Friches Theatre Urbain (France), Magnet Theatre (South Africa), La Mancha (Chile) and Clod Esnemble (UK). The paper will explore the ways in which the training of key people within each company at the Lecoq School is adapted and translated into practices appropriate for the community contexts within which they work, and for the kinds of issues and challenges which they seek to address. We will examine how specific exercises and practices developed within the school’s pedagogy – such as the neutral mask work, the group devised projects known as auto-cours, the end of year projects (Les Inquetes (first year) and Les Commandes (second year)) have been employed in innovative ways as part of performance responses to wider themes and the implications of their practice for the future development of performer training.