Tekhnē Sessions: investigating dynamic aliveness in the actor's work

This essay documents a practice-based investigation of the space between training and performance processes. The interplay between structure and improvisation within a reiterative cycle of exercises and tasks provided the base for an exploration of a central aspect in the actor's work underlined by the term ‘dynamic aliveness’. This ongoing investigation was initiated in 2003 under the name of Tekhn? Sessions. Tekhn?'s investigation of dynamic aliveness emerged from three different yet related contexts: the technical training of Jerzy Grotowski, the performance vision of Ingemar Lindh, and the aesthetic of the sublime of Jean-François Lyotard. An overview of the context and of the informing technical principles that led to the design of the Tekhn? structure paves the way for a description of its informing principles, format, and applications. The agency of structure, the dynamics of improvisation, and the presence of observers, are identified as conditions of possibility for dynamic aliveness.