Actors and spectators are two sides of the same coin. The actors not only work with themselves, but also include the audience in the performance. In this section, two presentations were given. They dealt with the body and the mind of the actor, whether “living” or as puppets, and with the body and the mind of the spectator.
Ana Díaz Barriga suggested that the puppeteer is charged with guiding the cognitive processes of the audience, not “only” with manipulating the puppet. She explored the complexity of the puppeteer’s task by applying insights from cognitive sciences. Through her collaboration with master puppeteers, she tried to understand how the minds and bodies of spectators work.
Emese Simó focused on understanding the position of the actor in contemporary theatre by using psychodrama techniques. She assumed that avoiding conventional acting approaches could be one of the possibilities of deconstruction. Her presentation included video recordings from the rehearsal period of the performance Uncle Vania by A. P. Chekhov. She recorded her experience from the rehearsals in a research diary. In her presentation, she introduced topics that she had managed to identify in her work.
Following the disruption of activity caused by the coronavirus pandemic, it was important to return to the topic of actor and spectator: not only to re-discover your inner actor, but also to re-discover your inner spectator. After all, every actor is also his own spectator.