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Action Theatre is an improvisational performance technique developed by the American performance artist, Ruth Zaporah.[1] Action Theatre is defined by its focus on embodied awareness, the tracking of the present moment through sensory experience, and by a structured training that uses exploration to build the performer's 'formal dexterity and the ability to “listen” to oneself and one’s acting partners'.[2] This physical theatre technique is documented in Zaporah's 1995 book, Action Theatre: The Improvisation of Presence.[3]
Action Theatre evolved from the explosion of interdisciplinary performance in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s, which included Contact Improvisation performance groups and Anna Halprin.[4] Zaporah is described as one of the 'leading lights of the Bay Area's thriving experimental theater scene of the 1970s and '80s' and as a 'master teacher ... whose work blurs the edges between modern dance and mime'.[5] She trained in modern dance (with Merce Cunningham, Alwin Nikolais and Martha Graham) and participated in the theater and movement experiments of the '60s; it is said she 'embodies play that's dead serious'.[6]
Action Theater is a training technique and practice that Ruth Zaporah developed over a twenty-year period in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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