ChironomiaMay 18, 2023
As we progress with Austin's notated example, it might be useful to consider how this learning could contribute to improving a singer's acting skills. Why spend time memorising examples when #Quintilian argued that the linchpin of #rhetoric was #improvisation? 🧵
Show threadChironomiaMay 18, 2023
Although the ability to improvise rhetorical speech was, for #Quintilian, the greatest fruit of the oratorical studies, he argued that students should start their learning by memorising and repeating good quality examples before attempting to produce speeches extempore
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Addressing #parents whose #children showed a talent for rhetorical performance, #Quintilian warned them that encouraging their children to extemporise speech too soon would make them lazy, instil in them bad habits, thwart their progress and squander their natural gifts
May 18, 2023 at 9:34amWeb
Show threadChironomiaMay 18, 2023
By reading, repeating and memorising the best examples one can find, students can innately understand how the language works and how to use it properly, and progressively amass a treasury of oratorical resources (#thesaurus #eloquentiae) which can be then automatically tapped during #improvisation
Show threadChironomiaMay 18, 2023
Thanks to the invention of writing, today we have access to almost infinite amounts of literary material from across millennia which can be used as models for enriching one's thesaurus of words and expressions. But what about examples of #movement and #gesture?
Show threadChironomiaMay 18, 2023
Gestural expression is much more ephemeral. With technology for recording moving image developed at the end of the 19C, Austin's notation and examples offer a remarkable vision of rhetoric in action, making them ideal models for singers to use to enrich their thesaurus of #gesture (which I call #thesaurus #histrioniae)
Show threadChironomiaMay 18, 2023
Although it could be fun to learn and perform Gay's Miser and Plutus with Austin's gestures, there are many more benefits to learning Austin's notation and memorising this and other examples of notated #poems and dramatic #speeches he includes in his treatise Chironomia (1806)
Show threadChironomiaMay 18, 2023
Austin's examples allow students to enrich their gestural glossary and subconsciously deduce the rhetorical principles modelled in them. Gestures and rules are stored progressively, through repetition, and in due course elements can be drawn during #improvisation spontaneously
Show threadChironomiaMay 18, 2023
For a more extensive discussion on how #gestural #notation can be used as a tool for teaching gesture improvisation and improving singers' #acting #skills, see the four exercises outlined on pp. 281-304 of #Teaching #Acting to #Singers. Free download here: http://dx.doi.org/10.5287/ora-or45d6qb2
Teaching acting to singers: harnessing historical techniques to empower modern performers - ORA - Oxford University Research Archive

This thesis examines how seventeenth- and eighteenth-century acting techniques could be used in conjunction with twentieth- and twenty-first-century theory and praxis to create modern acting tools for the dramatic training of classical singers. Classical singing curricula tend to focus