Performer Training for Actors and Athletes

Frank Camilleri is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Malta and Artistic Director of Icarus Performance Project (www.icarusproject.info). His publications on performer training, theatre as a laboratory, and practice as research reflect the theatre work he has been developing since 1989. He is also a long-distance runner.

Preface
Foreword by Paul Allain (University of Kent, UK)

Introduction
We Are All Alligators
i. Bodyworld
Bodyworld and the 3As
Bodies in the Open
ii. Bodyworld Affordances in Sports
Affordances in Action
Intentionality in Affordance
iii. Via Athletae in Sport and Aesthetic Performance
Heart Athletes and Flying Acrobats
Action in Life
Action in the Boxing Ring
Punches in the Face of Ethics and Reality
Enduring Humanity

PART I: MIND GAMES
Chapter 1. I Perform, I Think: Bodyworld Cognitions
Thinking About It
Mind Mapping
Attentional Focus
Movement Aesthetic and Economy
Outward Monitoring
Refining Running/Bodyworld
Distraction
Automatic Pilot and Exhaustion
What I Take With Me

Chapter 2. Mind Your Body: Attentional Focus in Performance
Internal/External Focus and the Mind-Muscle Connection
Flow Automaticity
Epistemic Actions in Performance
Secondary Tasks
Practice Insights
Cross-Sectional Perspectives

Chapter 3. Maintaining the Pace: Action Planning for Performance
Central Governor and Anticipatory Regulation
Psychobiological Model
Perception of Effort
Pacing
Aesthetic Pacing
Anticipatory Modulation
Calibrating Inner Action
Grafting Insights

PART II: HEART MATTERS
Chapter 4. Feeling Performance: Affect, Sensation, Emotion
Affect Theory and Affective Science
Resonating Experience
Emotion Episode
Eliciting Conditions
‘More Than Just an Actor Dressing’
Expressive or Communicative Outcomes
Stage Fright
Action Readiness
Improvisation and Real-World Play

Chapter 5. Performing Feeling: Action, Intention, Transformation
From Action Readiness to Actional Outcomes
Thought-Action
A Cat With Which I have Contact, or Intentionality
Emotion Modulation
Changing Oneself

Chapter 6. Putting on an Act: Performance Through Experience
Cognitive Processing
Enacting Action
Aesthetic Experience
Experience Case Studies
Case Study 1 (Training): Plastiques
Case Study 2 (Training Performance): Tekhne Sessions
Case Study 3 (Running): Long Runs
Case Study Reflections: Aesthetics in Athletics
Case Study 4 (Performance): Id-Descartes and Martyr Red
Improvisational Conclusions

Conclusion: Along the Via Athletae

References
Bibliography
Index