Fourteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

The term Mnemodrama was coined by the Polish/Italian theatre artist Alessandro Fersen (1911-2001) to describe an embodied training technique that he developed over a period of thirty years in his Studio in Rome. The core of the technique was a theatrical simulation of ritual object manipulation employed by shamans in traditional societies to induce an altered state of consciousness. Fersen’s experiments provided the contemporary performer with a psychic training which enabled her to explore different aspects of her persona, rediscovered from both the autobiographical and archetypal levels of her unconscious. The paper presents a case for viewing Alessandro Fersen as a pioneer of mid-20th Century experimental theatre practice, specifically from the standpoint of the interdisciplinary nature of his experiments: performance combined with anthropology, ethnology, and psychology; and argues for the continuing relevance of his work in a post-dramatic landscape, in which issues such as the investigation and presentation of “self” and the re-actualizing of ancient concepts of “community” through performance, have become rich fields for exploration.