The theatre of the body

![CDATA[My interest in masculinity – an issue of personal and cultural embodiment - arises from my own experience and my reflections upon that experience. In this respect, I don’t pretend to be a detached observer. I am, as Heinz von Foerster (von Foerster & Poerksen, 2002) would say, a crucial element in the observation. It is not simply my observations that are of interest here. To them must be added the second order exercise: my observation of my observation, my reflective consciousness. ‘I’ am essential within this knowing and I am vulnerable to its consequences. Within my reflective consciousness lies the ethical, value system that identifies and appreciates my knowing. Within this also lies opportunities for the crafting of creative expression. Commencing this discussion I assert that my embodiment – which incorporates my feeling response to the world - is part of how I know the world. It is crucial to my experience as an instinctive actor and reflective theorist. If knowing is arrived at through embodied consciousness, my ontology – my way of being – is intimately related to if not determined by my epistemology – my way of knowing - and vice versa. This is reinforced by findings in cognitive science, as reported by linguists Lackoff & Johnson (1980, 1999). They argue that “human reason is a form of animal reason, a reason inextricably tied to our bodies and the peculiarities of our brains” and “our bodies, brains and interactions provide the mostly unconscious basis for our everyday metaphysics, that is, our sense of what is real.” (1999: 17). This is an especially relevant in discussions around the dramatic encounter. As Joseph Roach (1985) says, “the immediate presence of the body to itself” is among the most startling discoveries of young performers (16). Accordingly, ‘what does it feel like?’ is one of the questions most frequently asked in drama.]]