Multimodal Acting and Performing

Andy Lavender

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-49679-1_3

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter considers how one might understand the work of actors and performers with reference to ideas of multimodality. The actor is not a ‘medium’ in the way of the media types in which she performs (theatre, film, radio drama, etc.). Yet, the actor does have a communicative function. It is argued that the modes of communicative media operate in a contemporary field of modal expansion, interrelation and transposition and that an account of acting and performing that considers such a field amends the longstanding focus on the actor’s ‘intention’ and ‘presence’. Instead, such an account delineates a technical infrastructure that suggests new insights into the actor’s work. Is the actor’s mode of performing expressed, shaped or constrained by the shifting media modalities in which her or his work is conveyed? The chapter examines instances of performances in theatre, in film, in ‘reality trend’ events and online.

Highlights

Contents 3.1 Modes, Modalities and the Actor as a Medium 3.2 On Analysing Acts of Performance 3.3 Modes and Modalities of Performance 3.4 Towards a Multimodal Performance Analysis References
‘Actor’ and ‘performer’ for present purposes are individuals who convey an act of performance that we are interested to describe in a systematic way
I examine below how we can see the actor as what Elleström describes as a ‘technical medium of display’ (2020: 33–40) and how this is always a matter that involves the perception of the spectator

Summary

Modes, Modalities and the Actor as a Medium

This chapter considers how the work of the actor or performer might be understood with reference to ideas of multimodality. The ‘sensorial modality’ is described as “The physical and mental acts of perceiving the interface of the medium through the sense faculties” and its most important modes given as “seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling” (2010: 36) This schematic organisation allows for a critical perspective and a procedure—one based on recognising specific features and distinctions and accounting for media operations as, continuously, a combination of modalities and modes (see Elleström 2010: 24). We must start somewhere, and for the purposes of this chapter, the actor’s body is as good a place as any

On Analysing Acts of Performance (in a Multimodal Situation)

Modes and Modalities of Performance

The Favourite (2018)

Black Mirror—‘Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too’ (2019)

Sanctuary (2017)

Towards a Multimodal Performance Analysis