Studies in Theatre and Performance Volume 27 Number 3 © 2007 Intellect Ltd

Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/stap.27.3.261/1

Michael Chekhov and the embodiedimagination: Higher self and non-selfJerri Daboo

AbstractMichael Chekhov developed a series of exercises, influenced in part by the work ofRudolf Steiner, which explore a psychophysical approach to training and perform-ing. This article discusses his ideas and techniques in relation to the phenomenon ofthe embodied imagination for the actor; ways in which imagining can create adirect and altering effect on the physiology of the body; and how this can be utilisedby the actor in creating a character, which they both are-and-are-not. The embodiedimagination will be examined through theories from neurophysiology and sportspsychology, which offer a means of articulating the connection between body andmind, and the importance of ‘self ’ and ‘self-imaging’ from a scientific perspective.An exploration of Chekhov’s Imaginary Body exercises leads into a re-examinationof this through notions of the Higher Self within Anthroposophy, and non-selfwithin Buddhism, to suggest that if the actor is engaged in the process of imaginingthrough the body, then their sense of ‘self ’ is forgotten, and the embodied imagina-tion alters the psychophysicality to be/become that of the character.

This article examines a psychophysical approach to the imagination, usingaspects from Buddhist philosophy and practice as a framework to offer aparticular lens for articulating the complexity of the relationship of theactor to their sense of ‘self ’, and the process of creating a character. Thisview of an embodied paradigm of the imagination will be examinedthrough the work of Michael Chekhov, both in terms of his theories of thenotion of the Higher Self, and also how it operates at a pragmatic levelwithin his exercises. My research includes principles from neurophysiologyand sports psychology that explore ways in which the imagination canhave a direct and altering affect on the physiology of the body, and how thisrelates to the creation of ‘self-image’, and the sense of ‘self ’. These principlesare significant within the argument of this article, and are placed at theopening to offer a scientific understanding of the phenomenon, which willbe reflected in both the examination of Buddhist insights, and MichaelChekhov’s approach to the psychophysical creation of a character.

‘What you see is what you get’Moshe Feldenkrais, in his system of bodymind movement and somatic exer-cises, states that when a particular exercise has become familiar, it shouldbe practised again solely in the imagination, and then afterwards performedphysically. Not only, he believed, would this create a clear self-image for the

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KeywordsMichael Chekhov

psychophysical

Steiner

Buddhism

sports psychology

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practitioner, something he felt was unfamiliar to most people, but also that‘improvement is greater through visualization than through action’(Feldenkrais 1972: 137). If the movements are performed on, for example,the right side and then just imagined on the left side, the action on the leftside would be visualised as being of a better quality than that on the rightside. This is because the right side is still working physically with old habitsin terms of tensions and restrictions in the body, whereas the left side hasbeen imagined differently, and therefore moves differently in the visualisingbodymind. Using the imagination may also prevent any actual physicalinjuries incurred through incorrect performance of the movement. In thisway the embodied imagination, through changing the perception and self-belief of how well the body can perform a movement, can potentially alsoalter the actuality of its execution. Through simply imagining doing amovement, the ability of the body to perform it will be increased through achange in the self-image. This approach in the work of Feldenkrais led me toexamine research undertaken in neurophysiology and sports psychology,to question whether there is a scientific paradigm to explain why visuali-sation might have a direct influence on the physiology of the body. If thiswere so, what implications might this have for the actor using their imag-ination in a training or performance context?

In his book Mind Sculpture Ian Robertson, a neurophysiologist at theMedical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge,describes many experiments that have been conducted to explore theinfluence of imagining on the body. In one study listed by Yue and Cole inthe Journal of Neurophysiology in 1992, the aim was to compare ‘the effectsof mental versus real practice in tensing and relaxing one finger of the lefthand’ (Robertson 1999: 40). In sessions lasting four weeks, one group ofparticipants physically did the exercises, one group imagined doing them,and a control group did neither. Testing afterwards demonstrated that thecontrol group showed no improvement; the group who had performed theexercises physically had improved their finger strength by 30 per cent; andthe group who had simply imagined the exercises had improved by an aston-ishing 22 per cent. In another case, people imagined ‘they were running ona treadmill that was going at different speeds. Even though they were notphysically moving, their heart rate and breathing increased in direct propor-tion to the speed of the mental treadmill’ (Robertson 1999: 40).

Robertson’s theory as to why the mental visualisation would have suchan effect on the body is centred around Hebbian Learning, named afterCanadian psychologist Donald Hebb who, in what has been known as‘Hebb’s Rule’ since 1949, ‘suggested that learning could be based onchanges in the brain that stem from the degree of correlated activitybetween neurons: if two neurons tend to be active together, their connectionis strengthened, otherwise it is diminished. Therefore, the system’s connec-tivity becomes inseparable from its history of transformation and related tothe kind of task defined for the system’ (Varela, Thompson and Rosch 1999:87). If different parts of the brain are stimulated through the nervous system

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by a physical sensation, they tend to become associated and will worktogether if one or the other is stimulated. If the connection is made oftenenough the pattern becomes imprinted, so if one part of the brain is acti-vated, the related parts will automatically also be activated, and this willsend the appropriate signals back down the nervous system to the relevantparts of the body to initiate physical action. The process of visualising a par-ticular action also creates the connections in the brain which sends thesignals into the related parts of the body, which is why imagining doing anexercise can have a physiological effect similar to that of actually physicallydoing the exercise, in that it stimulates the muscles, blood supply and nervesin that area. Krippner and Achterberg describe T. Barber’s (1984) experi-ments which explored how imagining affects the blood supply in the body:

If . . . thoughts, images and feelings can produce variations in blood supply,it is likely that the blood flow to other parts of the body is continually affectedby what people are thinking, imagining, and experiencing. . . . [B]y beingdeeply absorbed in imagining a physiological change, some individuals canevoke the same thoughts and feelings that are present when an actual phys-iological change occurs, hence stimulating the cells to produce the desiredphysiological change.

(Cardena et al. 2000: 377)

This principle has been used in the field of sports psychology, where thepractice of the embodied imagination, of an athlete visualising themselvesperforming their sport, is known as ‘mental practice’. Sports psychologistAidan Moran states that ‘most contemporary sport psychologists wouldagree . . . that sport is played as much in the imagination as with the body’(Moran 1996: 203). For professional golfer David Feherty, ‘the only limitson what a player can score are imposed by his own imagination’ (Moran1996: 202). When doing ‘mental practice’, the sportsperson imagines andfeels themselves performing an action in a highly skilled way before orduring the actual execution of a movement. When they visualise thismovement, they ‘see’ and sense themselves doing it perfectly, understandhow the movement works, and kinaesthetically feel how it would be toperform it in the best way possible. For this to be effective, it has to be avery focused and precise use of the imagination, and takes a good deal ofconcentration and training. An Olympic springboard diver explained that

it took me a long time to control my images and perfect my imagery, maybea year, doing it every day. At first I couldn’t see myself or I would see mydives wrong all the time. As I continued to work at it, I got to the point whereI could see myself doing a perfect dive.

(Hardy, Jones and Gould 1996: 29)

This also demonstrates the importance of self-image within this type ofperformance. Athletes visualise being able to perform their sport perfectly,

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which creates a different self-image, literally a different character with theability to do things better, which can alter the belief and confidence in theiractual abilities, that may help develop the physical patterns and movementsof their body to be/become that image in reality. As sports psychologistsHardy, Jones and Gould state, ‘recent research is certainly suggestive that“what you see is what you get”; that is, performers become confident byimagining themselves to be confident’ (Hardy, Jones and Gould 1996: 31).This is also used in imagining being the character or persona of a winner.One Olympic gold medal-winning pistol shooter said, ‘I would imagine tomyself, “How would a champion act? How would a champion feel? Howwould she perform on the line?” This helped me find out about myself, whatworked and what didn’t work for me. Then as the actual roles I had imag-ined came along, I achieved them, and that in turn helped me to believethat I would be the Olympic champion’ (Hardy, Jones and Gould 1996: 61).

This brief investigation of aspects of neurophysiology and sportspsychology has indicated the possibilities of the embodied imagination increating an actual change in the physiology of the body, and supportsFeldenkrais’s use of the imagination as a means of helping to perform amovement in a ‘better’ way in the imagination, which will in turn affectits physical actualisation. In addition, for both Feldenkrais and sports psy-chologists, the other important factor is that the imagination can prompta change in the self-image, promoting the belief and confidence in the‘self ’ of the sportsperson and leading to their performing the action in amore highly skilled manner, and also to their assuming the persona of awinner. This can only be achieved through the imagination being veryfocused, with a strong level of concentration. These aspects of the way inwhich the imagination can create a change in the body, the importance ofconcentration to achieve this, and an altering in self-image and the senseof ‘self ’, will be utilised in the examination of the theory and exercises ofMichael Chekhov, to question whether these ideas can also be applied tothe work of an actor in a psychophysical approach to the creation of a‘character’, whom they both are and are-not.

To imagine with the bodyOne of the key features in the work of Michael Chekhov is the developmentof exercises that involve the imagination, but an imagination that is com-pletely embodied, and thus reflects the psychophysical interconnectionbetween body and mind. In his opening statement in the first chapter ofTo the Actor, Chekhov states: ‘It is a known fact that the human body andpsychology influence each other and are in constant interplay. . . . [Theactor] must strive for the attainment of complete harmony between thetwo’ (Chekhov 2002: 1). Towards the end of his life, in a recorded set ofmaster-classes, he instructed that ‘all our physical exercises will be consid-ered and done as psychophysical exercises. . . . Everything like the devel-opment of our imagination or using of the psychological gesture, all suchmeans makes physical exercises to psychophysical’ (Chekhov 1996: Tape 1).

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Chekhov stated that psychological qualities are embodied in, and expressedthrough, the physical body, and as such, there needs to be an understand-ing of the way in which this connection can be explored through thedevelopment of specific exercises based in action, gesture and imagination.It is through exploring the body with training methods which can free thephysicality from its established habits and restrictions, that a way intoembodying and expressing new or different psychological or mental statescan be found. He believed that students must attempt to be fully aware oftheir body, and what it is capable of:

In order to ‘know’, the pupils must discover the possibilities of their own bodies– must explore these possibilities as if for the first time and be aware every timethey discover a new sensation or re-action during the movement exercises.

(Dartington Archives, a)

By developing this awareness and understanding of their physicality, actorscan begin to explore the way in which this physicality can be developedand altered with the help of the imagination. Working with a specificimage in mind can transform the physicality, and thus psychology, of thebodymind. In this way, the ‘self ’ of the actor can become a new psy-chophysical ‘state of being’, appropriate to the character in a particularmoment in the dramaturgy of a play. I use the term ‘state of being’ to indi-cate a specific set of patterns and reactions of body, mind and breathwhich are present or manifested in the actor in a given moment, which iscreating the embodiment of a ‘character’. This will be examined further inthe discussion on Buddhism, which inspired my use of the term.

Chekhov’s Imaginary Body exercises are a way of beginning to examinethis process. In many ways the exercises are very simple. The actor imag-ines altering a specific part of their body, and observes how the resultingchange in sensations can create a new physicality and psychology.Examples include imagining having a long, thin neck; no neck at all; beingtwenty feet tall; being three feet tall; having long hands, or short stubbyhands; fingers made of glass, or twigs, or razors. The actor then begins tomove, perform actions, speak lines etc., working with this embodied imageof an altered physicality. In this way, the imagination is being used tocreate a change in the physical habitual patterns of the body, which alsoleads to a change in the self-image, as this new pattern leads to a trans-formed sense of ‘self ’ through its difference. Chekhov describes it thus:

If you imagine it [the Imaginary Body] you will see that you are so far fromyour own psychology that you have already plunged into another imaginarybeing; and you will have a different psychology and will speak and move dif-ferently. . . . The actor must be brave enough to say goodbye to his own stiffbody and follow the suggestions of his imaginary body. He must enlarge hisbeing and make his being flexible.

(Chekhov 1983: 78)

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Each of the different Imaginary Bodies will alter the psychophysical patterns,creating a new sense of ‘self ’ or ‘state of being’ in that moment. Chekhovexplains that imagining the body with a long, thin neck can promote thefeeling of being ‘constantly on the alert. This is already the psychology ofyour character. You have transformed your entire psychology by using onlyan image of the neck of your character’ (Chekhov 1996: Tape 1).

This exercise allows the imagination to have an immediate, direct andaltering effect on the entire bodymind, resulting in a transformation of‘self ’ through engaging with the image of a different physicality. Chekhovexplains that this ability of the Imaginary Body exercise is brought aboutthrough the concentration and will of the imagination, rather than theeffort or deliberation of the thinking mind exerting control over the body.

We can easily imagine the arms and hands to be longer than they are –perhaps six inches longer. If we do not force our physical arms and hands –which will only make an unhealthy and bound impression – but let ourimagination live with these longer arms and hands, we will see how thearms and hands will change of themselves, not because we force them tobecome longer, but they will give the impression that they are longer. If wetried to stretch them, it will only give the impression that the actor is tortur-ing himself, but if we rely upon the imaginative picture of these arms andhands, they will give the impression that they are longer. . . . If you force yourphysical body, then the whole thing could go to pieces because you mightrely upon your physical body only, or repeat your old clichés.

(Chekhov 1985: 145, 146)

When the imagination is engaged with the action of the movement, thenthe psychophysical transformation can happen without any interferencefrom the ‘self ’ of the actor ‘trying’ to make it happen. As Chekhov said, ‘letthe Imaginary Body do the work for you’ (Chekhov 1996: Tape 1). Thebodymind of the ‘self ’ of the actor may be restricted by habitual patternsand tensions, but the embodied imagination can offer limitless possibilitiesfor altering these patterns, for becoming ‘other’.

Chekhov himself had an extremely visual imagination, and was alsogreatly gifted as an artist. He could imagine characters in great detail, andstated that they would literally appear before him. When he started workingon Hamlet, he was able to visualise that ‘Hamlet really came and played forhim, so he would watch something outside of himself performing’ (Powers2003, personal interview). The pictures below demonstrate the way inwhich the initial visualised picture that Chekhov had and could sketch insuch detail, would be manifested in his final performance on stage.

The character sketch of the part of Foma Opiskin in Dostoyevsky’s SeloStepanchikovo demonstrates his precise image of not only the outwardappearance of the character and the make-up necessary to achieve this, butalso a clear sense of the physicality in terms of gesture, posture and facialexpression, and how this provides the defined quality of the characterisation.

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The photograph of Chekhov’s actualperformance in the role is strikinglyin tune with that of his preliminarysketches of his visualisation for theembodiment of the part.

Just as sportspeople need todevelop a strong concentration onan image for it to be effective,Chekhov stressed that this is alsoimportant for actors in order to beable to imagine the character infront of them:

If you are making efforts to see acharacter you have to perform youmust see it in your mind’s eye bymaking the effort. By making suchefforts every day you will come tothe point when your images willappear before you with such powerand strength that you will be forcedto stop your inner life and followyour image not because you force itbut because it forces you to followit. Then is the moment when youcan say that you have developed yourimagination to the necessary point.This is the actor or artist’s imagina-tion – the creative imaginationwhich gives this blessed momentwhen the image appears before youof its own accord. To get this abilityyou must expend tremendous activ-ity and energy in doing exercises inwhich you try to see a definite character or image and penetrate into itslife. . . . At the moment when your images begin to fly around you, inside ofyou, etc., you will not only have a developed imagination but your whole cre-ative possibilities are born in this moment.

(Dartington Archives, b)

The images are not simply in the mind, but permeate through the physiol-ogy of the body. Chekhov constantly urged actors to move away from usingtheir thinking mind, from analysis and rational thought, and instead toexperience their psychology through their body, and vice versa. Mel Gordonexplains that ‘Chekhov’s Technique dealt primarily with images, especiallyvisceral ones, that short-circuited complicated and secondary mental

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Figure 1: Chekhov’s character sketchesfor the part of Foma in Dostoyevsky’sSelo Stepanchikovo (Chekhov1991: 119).

Figure 2: Chekhov performing in therole of Foma (Chekhov 1991: 119).

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processes’ (Gordon 1987: 127). The imagined picture of the characterdoes not stay in a disembodied mind, but needs to be made presentthrough the entire physicality of the actor. This is what Chekhov terms theincorporation of an image:

He [the actor] must see and imagine the inner life and the outer appearanceof the character but first the inner life. Imagine yourself sitting as you areand imagine yourself getting up. Do it in your imagination and then incor-porate it by the condition that during the incorporation you must be veryaware of what you are doing. You must be aware that you are incorporatingwhat you have seen.

(Dartington Archives, c)

In this way, it is not just the physicality, but also ‘Chekhov wants us to geta sense of the character’s psyche through our imagination’ (Chamberlain2004: 40). These images are not fixed objects, but instead ‘are indepen-dent and changeable within themselves, although they are full of emotionsand desires, you, while working upon your parts, must not think that theywill come to you fully developed and accomplished. . . . [T]hey will requireyour active collaboration’ (Chekhov 2002: 23). The use of the imaginationin this way allows for an internal sensing at a kinaesthetic level thatcreates a transformation within the bodymind. Concentration and engage-ment with a particular image and action can lead to getting the ‘self ’ ofthe actor out of the way as they are fully absorbed in the psychophysicalexecution of the exercise. In so doing, rather than being restricted byhabitual patterns associated with their ‘self ’ and self-image, they caninhabit a new set of psychophysical patterns, or a ‘state of being’, which isappropriate to the character.

The higher self of anthroposophyThe issue of ‘self ’ is very important in this discussion, and I want briefly todiscuss Chekhov’s use of Steiner’s notion of the Higher Self or Higher Ego,and then my re-interpretation of this through Buddhism, where ‘self ’becomes ‘non-self ’ or a forgetting of the ‘self ’. This is not intended to makea direct correlation between Steiner’s use of Higher Self, and non-selfwithin Buddhism, because they are different within their own traditions,but to provide a framework to attempt to articulate the experience of theactor within the context of working with the embodied imagination, andits potential for transformation at a psychophysical level.

Chekhov’s use of the term Higher Self or Higher Ego originates inSteiner’s writings on Anthroposophy. Within Steiner’s view, the Higher Selfis a transcendent ‘Self ’ that is separate from the physical body and the small,everyday, ‘ego-self ’. Mala Powers describes it as ‘having an etheric body, anastral body. . . . [It is] your real Higher Self, your Higher Individuality, yourHigher Ego that never fully incarnates in the body, but that is always there,and which, artistically, you can have more and more conscious connection

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with’ (Powers 2003, personal interview). Chekhov translates this sense oftranscendence for actors into the point of reaching the state of creative inspi-ration, where the small, everyday, lower ego or ‘self ’ is transcended in theprocess of artistic activity, and the Higher Self emerges, and is made presenton stage, through the performance. Chekhov explains:

In everyday life we identify ourselves as ‘I’; we are the protagonists of ‘I wish,I feel, I think.’ This ‘I’ we associate with our bodies, habits, mode of life, family,social standing and everything else that comprises normal existence. But inmoments of inspiration the I of an artist undergoes a kind of metamorpho-sis. . . . It is a higher-level I; it enriches and expands the consciousness.

(Chekhov 2002: 86, 87)

Chekhov believed that one of the main problems with affective or emotionmemory is that it involves the use of personal, ‘egotistical’ feelings belong-ing to the Lower or Everyday Self, and that these are not appropriate forperformance on stage. In relation to the Higher Ego which transcends theeveryday and the personal, he explains that:

I don’t speak about our personal feelings. I speak about the feelings whichbelong to the realm which is bigger than we are. To the realm of feeling whichcomes from inspiration. If I say the line ‘To be or not to be’ as if it were mypersonal problem no-one would be interested in it – it is too small. In order tosay these lines I must have some feelings, some electricity which changes mywhole being and then perhaps I have the right to ask ‘To be or not to be’.

(Dartington Archives, d)

For Chekhov, our real-life memories do not offer enough potential in them-selves for this transformation on stage. He describes them as being like‘ghosts’ (Chekhov 1996: Tape 4) from our past, which makes them toopersonal and subjective for use on stage. He believes that, not only does anaudience find it unpleasant to see these personal feelings displayed, butalso that this might encourage the actor to encounter problems as a resultof losing their mental balance, and dwelling in negativity. He graphicallydescribes an emotion memory as being like a ‘small, dirty envelope’ (Chekhov1996: Tape 4) from the past in which the actor can potentially get ‘stuck’,resulting in the establishment of habitual patterns of the bodymind. Inorder to find creative inspiration, the actor must reach beyond their every-day lives and feelings, into the realm of their Higher Self. This, for Chekhov,is why the Higher Self offers much more potential for creativity and inspira-tion than the ‘smaller’ everyday self, bound up with personal concernswhich are of no interest to the audience. The everyday ‘self ’, the ego-’I’ ofthe actor, is forgotten through absorption and engagement of the body-mind with the activity. Chekhov states that he experiences ‘a sense of joywhen absorbed in a creative process and it is derived from the following: 1)a release from my own personality; and 2) awareness of the enactment of

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the creative idea which otherwise would remain out of the grasp of myeveryday consciousness’ (Chekhov 1983: 32).

The non-self of BuddhismThis idea of what Chekhov describes as a ‘release from my own personal-ity’ will now be explored through the notion in Buddhism of ‘non-self ’.Buddhism1 as a philosophical practice can be a very useful framework forexamining the processes of acting, as it is by its nature a form of practice-based research, in that it is a practical and direct method for investigatingthe psychophysical ‘self ’. The Buddha encouraged his students to think ofhis teachings in terms of being a science: he wanted the students tobecome their own scientists, literally scientists of their ‘self ’. Buddhism isnot a disembodied philosophy or theory, but instead offers a very practicaland pragmatic study of, and investigation into, the nature and processes ofthe bodymind. Through this, there can be an understanding of the way inwhich we construct the idea of ‘self ’, that can in turn lead to the idea of‘non-self ’. One of the Three Characteristics of Existence in Buddhist termsis anatta– in Pali, ana–tma– in Sanskrit, which means ‘non-self ’. Essentially,Buddhism believes that there is no abiding identity, no permanent ‘I’, nofixed ‘self ’, which continues unaltered from moment to moment. Instead,there is a constantly changing or evolving pattern of reactions happeningwithin the bodymind organism. The Buddha stressed the need for investi-gation, through the practice of awareness or mindfulness, into the entireprocesses of the bodymind in each moment to understand this at anorganic level, rather than as an intellectual idea. G.P. Malalasekeraexplains: ‘in the Buddha’s teaching, the individual’s being is a becoming, acoming-to-be, something that happens, an event, a process’ (in George2000: 53). There is a constant movement or stream of ever-shifting pat-terns, from which humans create a sense of continuity, labelled as the‘self ’, and which we believe to be the same ‘self ’ existing through eachmoment. Sri Lankan Buddhist monk and scholar Walpola Rahula explainsthat instead of the ‘self ’ being a fixed object, the ‘series is, really speaking,nothing but movement. It is like a flame that burns through the night: it isnot the same flame nor is it another’ (Rahula 1959: 34) (in Pali: na ca sona ca anno – ‘neither the same nor another’). As another way of under-standing this, if I were to look at a photograph of myself from when I was sixyears old, I am not the same person physically, mentally or emotionally as Iwas then, and yet I am also not a completely other person in that photo-graph, or anywhere else. It is both me-and-not-me at the same time.

The concept of anatta– or non-self, can offer an interesting approach tounderstanding Chekhov’s investigation into finding ways for actors to re-present certain mental, emotional or psychological states in performancewithout having to experience them ‘for real’. Based on the idea of anatta–,rather than there being a fixed, non-changing ‘self ’, there are insteadshifting patterns of body, mind, imagination, breath and subtle energiesthat exist and operate within a person at any given moment. By exploring

1. I have been training in andworking withBuddhist practicessince 1987, withteachers from thethree Schools ofBuddhism:Theravadin,Mahayana andVajrayana.

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what these precise patterns are in a particular situation or experience inrelation to breathing, posture, facial expression and gesture, the actor canthen recreate and embody them in a performance situation to re-presentstates of bodymind, which can be linked together to create a sense of ‘char-acter’ and narrative. This co-ordinates body, breath and imagination in away that fully engages the whole psychophysical organism with the imageand action being performed. In this way, there is no separate ‘me’ doingthe action, there is simply action. Rahula explains: ‘There is no unmovingmover behind the movement. It is only movement’ (Rahula 1959: 26).

The sense of self, of ego-’I’, is bound up with conditioned psychophysicalhabits and reactions, whereas the state of non-self transcends that to allowfor a new ‘state of being’, or character, in the organism. But first we need tostudy ourselves as actors, as individual people, in order to be able to see andunderstand what our particular habits and conditionings are, and how weconstruct our own sense of self and identity. It is only then that we can beginto explore how to let go of these habits and conditionings, in order for ourbodyminds to express a different psychophysical state, which can be labelleda character, that is filling the bodymind, but is not-me. To repeat the Paliphrase, na ca so, na ca anno, neither the same nor another, which is a usefulway of articulating the paradox of the acting process of playing a character:it is neither the same, nor another. It is both me-and-not-me at the sametime. The thirteenth-century Zen master Dogen wrote in his Genjo-koan, the‘Koan Realised in Life’: ‘To study the self is to know the self. To know the selfis to forget the self ’ (in Nisker 2000: 191). Self-awareness, self-investigationand self-understanding lead not to self-consciousness, but to self-forgetful-ness, which is non-self. In terms of a training and performance process forthe actor, this is where complete awareness and understanding of the body-mind allows for total engagement with the action and embodied imagina-tion, which leads to getting the ‘self ’ out of the way to a point where, in themoving, there is just the movement. The sense of ‘I’ is forgotten because weare performing a psychophysical pattern which is ‘not-I’. As there is nounmoving mover behind the movement, so there is no fixed ‘self ’ of eitheractor or character acting the action, there is only action. This process canalso perhaps be seen as similar to learning and working with an exercise: thedetails of the exercise have to be learned, studied and practised first, in orderto know what it is about and how it works, but then it needs to be forgottenon a conscious level, to allow it to operate optimally within the bodymind.We need to get our-selves, our ego-I which has thoughts, ideas, and conceptsabout it, out of the way in order to just allow it to be and work in the body.Csikszentmihalyi uses an Italian expression to describe this: ‘Impara l’arte, emettila da parte’, which literally means ‘Learn the art, and then put it aside’(Csikszentmihalyi and Jackson 1999: 51).

This is relevant for not just actors. To refer back to sports psychology,the late Formula One driver Ayrton Senna describes his experience whentaking pole position at the Monaco Grand Prix in 1988: ‘I suddenly realisedI was no longer driving the car consciously. . . . It frightened me because it

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was well beyond my conscious understanding’ (Moran 1996: 74). Throughhis concentration and learned skill, Senna managed to forget his conscious‘self ’ and was absorbed simply in the activity of driving, resulting in thefeeling that it was the car doing the driving, rather than him. To put it moresimply, Yamada Koun Roshi states that it ‘is a matter of forgetting the self inthe act of uniting with something’ (Kim 1987: xi).

The use of exercises that engage the embodied imagination can thus havetwo effects. Firstly, they can help create a psychophysical transformationwithin the bodymind of the actor to discover and embody a different physi-cality and psychology, related to that of the character. Additionally, the verymeans used to accomplish this – intense concentration and single-mindedfocus on the image and action in the present moment – can lead to a forget-ting of the ‘self ’ of the actor, to allow for greater potential and freedom intheir performance. When the entire bodymind is filled and absorbed with theembodied image, there is no ‘space’ left for worry, nerves, thinking or beingdistracted. Exercises like the Imaginary Body can offer the twenty-first-century actor a way to engage the imagination with the action, the mindwith the body, to create a psychophysical whole which can help them tomove beyond their habitual, everyday patterns, to have greater expressivepotential within their bodymind, which is neither a psychological identifica-tion nor re-living of a memory, because it is not-me, in our usual under-standing of ‘me’, ‘I’ or ‘self ’. The embodied imagination has the potential toalter our ‘self ’-image’, the psychophysical sense of ‘self ’, which can lead togetting ‘me’ out of the way, and for the action to just be acted, without anactor having to do it. To repeat, in the thirteenth century, Zen master Dogensaid: ‘To know the self is to forget the self ’. In his class notes from 13 April1936 at his studio in Dartington College, Michael Chekhov said: ‘First wemust know, and then we must forget. We must know, and then be. . . . Toknow and then to forget. When we reach this point then we will be the newtype of actor’ (Dartington Archives, e).

This article is an extended version of a talk presented at the conference Theatre ofthe future? Michael Chekhov and 21st Century Performance, in DartingtonCollege, November 2005.

AcknowledgementsWith thanks to the Dartington Hall Trust Archives for inclusion of previouslyunpublished material from their Michael Chekhov archives.

Works citedCardena, E., S. Lynn and S. Krippner (2000), Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Exam-

ining the Scientific Evidence, Washington DC: American Psychological Association.

Chamberlain, Franc (2004), Michael Chekhov, London: Routledge.

Chekhov, Michael (1983), ‘Chekhov on acting: A collection of unpublished materi-als (1919–1942)’, TDR, 27: 3, pp. 46–83.

——— (1985), Lessons for the Professional Actor, New York: Performing Arts JournalPublications.

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——— (1991), On The Technique of Acting, in Mel Gordon (ed.), New York:HarperCollins.

——— (1996), Michael Chekhov on Theatre and the Art of Acting: The Five-HourMaster Classes, Mala Powers (ed.), New York: Magi.

——— (2002), To the Actor on the Technique of Acting, Mel Gordon and Mala Powers(eds.), London: Routledge.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. and S. Jackson (1999), Flow in Sports: the Keys to OptimalExperiences and Performances, Leeds: Human Kinetics Europe.

Dartington Archives, Dartington Trust, Devon (File numbers according to the cat-alogue of the Archives follow the citation in brackets)

a – from class notes, 15 May 1936 (DWE A 19 A).

b – from class notes, 30 October 1939 (DWE A 19 A).

c – from class notes, 16 December 1938 (DWE A 19 A).

d – from the essay Art is Higher Activity Than Life, June – July 1937 (DWE 18 B).

e – from class notes, 13 April 1936 (DWE A 19 A).

Feldenkrais, Moshe (1972), Awareness through Movement, London: Harper & Row.

George, David (2000), Buddhism as/in Performance, New Delhi: D K Printworld (P) Ltd.

Gordon, Mel (1987), The Stanislavski Technique: Russia: A Workbook for Actors, NewYork: Applause Theatre Books.

Hardy, L., G. Jones and D. Gould (1996), Understanding Psychological Preparation forSport: Theory and Practice of Elite Performers, Chichester: Wiley.

Kim, Hee-Jin (1987), Dogen Kigen: Mystical Realist, Tucson: University of ArizonaPress.

Moran, Aidan (1996), The Psychology of Concentration in Sport Performers: A CognitiveAnalysis, Hove: Psychology Press.

Nisker, Wes (1998), Buddha Nature, London: Rider.

Powers, Mala (2003), Personal interview, 17 June 2003, New York.

Rahula, Walpola (1959), What the Buddha Taught, Oxford: Oneworld Publications.

Robertson, Ian (1999), Mind Sculpture: Your Brain’s Untapped Potential, London:Bantam Press.

Varela, F., E. Thompson and E. Rosch (1999), The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Scienceand Human Experience, Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press.

Suggested citationDaboo, J. (2007), ‘Michael Chekhov and the embodied imagination: Higher self

and non-self ’, Studies in Theatre and Performance 27: 3, pp. 261–273, doi:10.1386/stap.27.3.261/1

Contributor detailsJerri Daboo is a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter. Her research focuseson a psychophysical approach to performance, and she has been training in andteaching the work of Michael Chekhov for five years. Her research and practicealso examine an intercultural and interdisciplinary investigation of the bodymindin performance, including neurophysiology, sports psychology, Buddhism, andChinese and Japanese forms of biomedicine.E-mail: J.J.Daboo@exeter.ac.uk

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