The Demidov Etudes: Foundation of the Technique

Blog #2

The Etudes

Fundamental to the Demidov Organic Acting Technique are Demidov’s etudes – small improvisational scenes with a given text. These are very different – in fact quite the opposite – from a typical Stanislavsky etude, in which two actors will be given all the facts: the circumstances, the relationship, location, task or objectives, etc, and then they will improvise the text.

Contrastingly, in a Demidov etude, you and a partner are given one or two lines of a very simple text and nothing more. These lines are such that they hint at certain circumstances, but are left open to the actors’ creative interpretation. The actors repeat the lines without any sense of how they will say them. The repetition of the text is solely so that it will be remembered when the etude begins.

There is no discussion or analysis of the text prior to repeating it. When the partners feel the text is ‘with them’, they are asked to then toss that text out of their heads, to forget it, and after to put everything on hold for two to three seconds – not thinking or wanting or premeditating how they will play anything. After this, they let go of this emptiness and allow themselves to surrender to the first impulse, the first sensation, feeling or mood, the first experience – whatever comes to them they give in to this without questioning whether it is ‘right’ or ‘appropriate’. They give themselves full freedom to do what they feel like doing, think what they feel like thinking and speak when they feel like speaking.

After the etude, the actors are asked – in retrospect – about what they perceived, what they remember about the partner, about what the partner said to them, who the partner may have become for them. In most cases, if the process has been followed correctly, the partners find themselves on the same page in terms of circumstances and relationship.

These etudes are aimed at training the actors to imaginatively perceive the circumstances, relationships, facts and events, and respond to these emotionally, sensorially, viscerally, spontaneously. They do not try to analyse in the moment who they are or who the partner is, nor do they think in the moment about a narrative, story, action or objective. They simply surrender to whatever impulse, urge, feeling, mood, thought or impression from the partner emerges in them organically and spontaneously.

As in life, we are in a continual flux of responding and reacting to perceived or imagined circumstances. We do not for the most part plan our every response in life, as circumstances come upon us mostly without our foreknowledge. We are simply responding moment to moment, in the moment.

Among many other things, these etudes train the actor to open and sharpen all their perceptive channels. This can be developed in actors so that it becomes a reflex, a habit of surrendering to the first impression, the first experience, the first impulse.

Why? Because the first impression or reaction is always the most truthful – it is what we actual feel, what we actually want to say, what we actually want to do. What follows this first urge – if we miss it – is either an imitation of that first experience, or a restructuring of it. This leads us in a different direction, away from what we originally felt/thought/wanted to say.

So why is creative perception more important than so called ‘action’? For Demidov, perception has primacy over action, because any action is a RESULT of what we perceive. And how can I predict what I am going to do next? It all depends on what and how I am perceiving the circumstances in any given moment. The circumstances dictate how I will behave. Any premeditation of my actions is a prediction of a result of something that has not yet been encountered. This leads us to predicable, mechanical acting.

The Path of Creative Transformation

In the Demidov etudes, the actor accepts whatever comes to them as his or her reality, as their truth. They do not force themselves to do or feel anything, but rather from a state of calm receptivity they open themselves to forces acting on and through them from within and without. It comes from their inner life and from the facts surrounding them: the partner, the partner’s words, the space, and the atmosphere. All of this without any effort.

The text, the actor’s inner experience and creative imagination, the perception of the partner and the space; all these combine toward a transformation into character. It can only be successful if the actors leave themselves alone. The actor allows life to live itself through them, working through their perceptive channels.

And in this way there is always a shift towards transformation that occurs – I remain myself, but there is also a sense that I become someone else: I and ‘not-I’, where circumstances take hold of me and work through me without my interference or analysis.

It can be confronting for actors not used to working in this way, to ask them to let go of premeditating what and how they will play something. But the Demidov Technique is channelling the process at work in nature. It works on an understanding that our subconscious creativity is much more powerful than anything we can prepare or predict ahead of time, which, if we are being honest, always ends up dead on arrival.