Applied Theatre unlocks the mind : Opens up the infinite doors
Dr. Parasuram Ramamoorthi
In this paper I focus on how Theatre can change our perspectives on Autism and theory of Mind. Assuming that children with autism have
1. Poor eye contact 2. Poor social skills 3. Lack empathy
4. Poor understanding of the Metaphoric language 5. Poor understanding of the intentions of others
This paper will attempt to show that Drama training has helped many children develop social skills and communication strategies.
Eyes are vital tools for speech. Without eye contact communication does not develop. Where the eyes go there goes the Mind. Theatre masks helped us and has helped enormously children in the spectrum to have proper eye contact and bonding with the teacher and parent.
Nearly 6 out of 10 children have taken a liking for colorful masks and they have started playing with the masks.
When the theatre game Mirror is played with the mask on, imitation skills improve. It is important that children are able to observe the actions of others and repeat almost in the same manner. Children with ASD have problems with the observation of an action and also ability to repeat the action and know the appropriateness of the action : where it is used and when.
Simple imitative skills with objects Arm and hand gross motor movements Static versus kinetic movements Head and mouth movements Sequence of actions
Facial expressions
Actions with vocalizations Imitation with Body Movements
Imitations of Models presented in a Mirror
( Partington’s Imitation skills assessment Domains)
Theatre training has been found very effective in training children with ASD the imitation skills. Particularly Facial expressions, sequencing of actions, imitation with body movements. A good training ground is the stage and experienced
actors/facilitators.
“ haven’t you ever been aware, in life or on stage, when in communication with other people, of a current emanating from your will flowing through your eyes(italics mine), your finger tips,your skin? What shall we call this method of communication? Emitting and receiving rays, signals? Radiating out and radiating in? in the absence of an alternative terminology let us stick with these words since they illustrate very clearly the kind of communication I have to talk about. In the near future when this invisible current has been studied by science, a more appropriate terminology will be established.”
These rays or signals later came to be called Mirror Neurons by Vittorio Gallese a neuro-physiologist in 1996 after his famous experiment with Macaque monkeys: Monkey see and monkey “virtually do”. This is visible at one day cricket match or a foot ball match. A fan’s mirror neurons light up when Sachin tendulkar is about to hit a ball : it could be a sixer. We respond to recognizable actions in recognizable situations and the actions have the power to engage us in a biological way lighting up the neurons.
Take voyeurism again as an instance. You don’t have to do it. Watch some one doing it. You almost have the same orgasmic flow. The action recognizable lights up the neurons and you experience what the performers are experiencing.
Theatre is a socially accepted platform where we watch actors fighting, making love, crying and even dying on stage. When an actor engages in sword fight with another actor some in the audience move to the edge of their seats and watch more intently. Simply because the mirror neurons are lighting up and the sword fight engages them. With another person in the same hall, a scene of tenderness, kissing and dancing by a pair of actors arouses him because his mirror neurons are acting up the scene.
Is there a difference between various theatre forms in effectively transmitting mirror neurons is a question often asked: Yes. Physical theatre and a theatre form where the spoken word is less important easily ignites the neurons better than the wordy theatre( a kind Bernard Shaw practiced)
Forms like Kathakali where the actors do not speak have a greater impact on the audience as they imagine what the actor’s physical body is trying to communicate and thereby their bodies also act and so the mirror neurons are more effective.
sessions.
1 2 3 4 5
Eye Contact (time in seconds)
2-3 2-5 3-6 5-8 6-8
Attention to Task (% time fully engaged)
20% 25% 35% 50% 55%
On Topic Conversation (# exchanges)
2 4 5 5 6
Appropriate body
language no yes yes yes yes Reciprocal turn taking
(#exchanges) 1 3 3 4 5
Kathakali theatre. The advantage with the Facial mask would be that the touch and different colurs also address sensory issues. Bonding between the parent and the child has increased manifold with the Face Mask. Attention span of many children
increased from 10 seconds to 180 seconds in our experiments.
Mask has allowed children and adults to focus on communication. Mask has become a play and we all know how play develops language skills. This graph shows how in 7 days time a child’s attention span increased over 200% with the use of the Face mask.
Scientists and neurologists talk of the deficit in mirror neurons in people with Autism and loss of “empathogen”neurotransmitters would explain lack of empathy and they recommend compounds that stimulate the release of neurotransmitters. MMDA or Ecstacy is
recommended.( Maria Elena Vallero: Autism and Mirror Neurons) mirror neurons link concepts across brain maps. For instance you mimick a celebrity, the mirror neurons link the celebrity and your speech. You evoke images of the celebrity in your brain. A simple gesture of waving hands like the President of USA can evoke images of the country and even the flag of that country. Visual-auditory mapping, auditory and sensory mapping are possible because of mirror neurons. When mirror neurons are not active we do not see the connection between visual and auditory or auditory and sensory.
Giocomo Rizzolatti MD , along with his colleagues at the University of Parma first identified the Mirror neurons and explained that the mirror neurons help us to understand other
peoples’mind and feel empathy for them. What is important in the discovery is that by
Imitation seems to be one of the key functions of Mirror neurons and imitation helps one to understand the feelings of others. This is a deficit in many persons in the spectrum. “ when you see some one express sadness, what you do is simulate in your brain the same neural activity you would if you were expressing sadness with your face. The mirror neurons then communicate to your emotion centres and you feel a little sad too.”
Mirror neurons allow you to figure out the intentions of others. “ I see what you mean” we hear that often in social conversation. That is the mirror neurons help us to see the world from another person’s visual vantage point. ( Tell-Tale Brain. P.128)
Mirror neurons allow us t o imitate. Miming, mimicry and acting out like Dad or Mom happen because of mirror neurons. Some humans think that mirror neurons can be fired by drugs cocaine and opium. Poets like Coleridge and Bharathy seem to have had ecstatic visions and their visionary out -burst resulted in great poetry.
Well one of the best substitutes for MMDA and Ecstacy is theatre. The BOS method
formulated by Susana Bloch trains actors to express emotions. When the same was tried with adults in the spectrum, results revealed that systemtic use of BOS Method will help young persons in the spectrum to express emotions and understand others intentions and develop empathy. May be a few word about BOS Method would help understanding the process of activating the neurotransmitters.
Mirror neuron dysfunction could be one of the reasons for persons in the spectrum’s lack of social skills, poor empathy .( Autism’s Smoking Gun ( APA.Sadie F Dingfelder. Oct 2005. Vol.36 .No.9)p.52.
Behaviour is a psychophysiological process and depends on the neuroendoctrine system. Acting is geared to control his body or part of the body in the emotional and verbal behavior to be represented.
Imagine for instance a man proposing to a woman: look at his body posture, his arms and fingers and in the traditional position of kneeling on his knees. In my article on Rehearsed Response I talk about how anything you see on stage is a rehearsed behavior. All emotions, basic emotions, can be stimulated by acting out. Theatre training teaches the actor to
“simulate” an emotion and Susana Bloch and her colleagues have experimented with clients to stimulate an emotion. Michael Chekhov another theatre director also experimented with “ Psychological Gesture”, different from natural gestures of everyday life. For instance the brooding quality of an introspective character( Hamlet is an example)is depicted by Chekhov as a person in a crouched position with folded arms and bent head. This is close to postural effector patterns of sadness mentioned by Bloch.
There is a breathing pattern characterized by amplitude and frequency modulation, a muscular activation and a facial expression: all these together express an emotion.
emotion to the child. Our training in Drama and understanding of Autism go together to make life easier for the child.
Expressing an emotion is to understand what it means physiologically and psychologically to a person. Fear or anxiety cannot be produced without the bodily changes. The Body is the vehicle of an emotion and we use some of the traditional theatre forms where the actors do not speak. Actors speak only through their bodies.( Kathakali, Yakshaghana) passive fear results in a freezing position and active fear results in “ running away”.
Respiratory training : learning to breathe at a slow rate while lying or standing. Regulateing breathing with timing and holding breath positions are given to children and adults in the spectrum. A child must be able to produce and control various breathing patterns. Different kinds of walking steps, different ways to stretch the body and parts of the body, control of the facial muscles are part of the BOS method to simulate an emotion. Understanding another’s intention comes with a knowledge of the emotion .( Bloch, Susana .(1988) “ effector patterns of basic emotions” Journal of Social and Biological structures. 11:201-11.
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-oxytocin-social-children-autism-20131203,0,7236419.story#!
My workshop White Lies offered opportunities for young persons to work with the intentions of others. When you meet some on say “ You look gorgeous” . This is a social compliment, not to be taken seriously. I don’t think the person greeted will ever assume that he or she is gorgeous. He/she knows it is a way of greeting and making some one else happy.
Similarly the worksop My First Date signaled the possibilities of going on dating with a member of the opposite sex. Not merely verbal cues, body cues have a meaning and intention. When I lean towards a person and whisper : you look
gorgeous, now the intentions are clearly not a social compliment. I am trying to flirt. Similarly when I show extra courtesy to a member of the opposite sex, I am trying to either impress or show-off. These workshops work on the neurons. Signals travel from one neuron to another down intricate neural pathways whose structures determine your thoughts, emotions, insights and more. Young persons who have difficulty with social interaction and meeting with the opposite sex when trained in the Drama way understand the Body Language and also understand why some one behaves in a particular way or why some one says something at certain moments. Most first date experiences of young persons in the spectrum are terribly awkward: they keep repeating themselves; they don’t look at the eyes of the partner. They don’t know what to talk. They cant have a joke. They don’t indulge in silly pranks. It became embarrassing for partners and the relationship did not take off. A training ground became essential and drama provided the space for training. Very simple theatre games like : walk like a Man,
write poetry? These questions when taken at the appropriate time and place give images of the personality types.
How to touch and where to touch and when to touch are significant aspects of the First date. Touch is sending signals and lighting up the Mirror Neurons. It is tactile and an agent of communication. Unfortunately we have grown suspicious of Touch. This is fundamental communication tool Acting and actor traing has a lot of training in the use of Touch. Touching a prop on the stage and using the Prop with different sense of touch There is also the tactile empathy, how we experience the sight of others being touched.
My workshop Third Eye Opens an actor training method involves evoking the tactile empathy on actors. Though this has not been tried with young persons in the spectrum I am sure that would also help them experience tactile empathy.
Stanislavsky the celebrated theoretician and director of theatre speaks of the vibrations that happen in a theatre space. He implied ‘ the irresitablity,
contagiousness, and the power of communion by means of invisible radiations of the human will and the feelings are great…actors can fill the whole auditorium with the invisible radiations of their emotions”
(Creating a Role.p.106)
A simple narrative dramatically enacted with Exposition,Rising Action, climax, Falling action and denoument can trigger the release of Cortisol and Oxytocin and it can help two actors who are playing the scene to bond with each other. Oxytocin is released even when two people are good friends and friendly gestures and signals are emitted. It need not be romantic feelings. It could be simply feelings of friendliness. Hey Buddy feeling is also Oxytocin related. J.A . Den Boer speaks of how physical contact stimulates the production of Oxytocin which plays a major role in stress reduction and bonding. Oxytocin also plays a major role in social reward systems and social motivation.( Dawson,2008;Baskerville,2010) Oxytocin facilitates social
attunement(Gordon,2013). Now instead of a nasal spray or medcinem theatre can effectively induce Oxytocin through social games, games of intimacy between actors and young adults may be trained to play scenes of intimacy and trained to enjoy social attunement. This method , if used in a systematic laboratory like experiment can prove to be a boon for young adults in the spectrum.
Theatre is often seen as a Mirror. Shakespeare’s Hamlet while speaking about acting asks the players to “ hold a mirror upto Nature”. Metaphors of reflection that hold up the human nature seem the function of Drama and that play which appeals to the fundamental human nature through their emotions has a strong theatre track and history. Aristotle also mentions that a great work, a tragedy effects a Katharsis in the audience. The actor effects emotions of pity and fear in the audience and the audience empathically relate themselves to the character’s tragedy. There is an emotional reciprocity between the actor and audience and this emotional reciprocity function has to be exploited in the training of adults in ASD. This is possible because at some point of time in theatre “ actors become an extension of the audience. Audiences are ,in fact, ‘mirror neurons’ exercising the same neuronal and muscular activity the
performing an action and observing an action . ( the classic example of a Monkey and the Banana) the actor infects the audience with a contagious smile or grin or laughter and the audience go through that contagious emotions and the auditorium is filled with laughter or sea of tears.
Another important behavior which we often encounter with persons in the spectrum is laughter. This is different from sense of humour.Johm Morreal makes a fine
distinction between laughter and humour. Laughter results from a pleasant
psychological shift and humour on the other hand results from a pleasant cognitive shift. When you don’t understand a joke there is no humour. Laughter can be pure animalistic; some one tickles you laugh. There is no cognitive shift at all. Applied theatre works on the principle of invoking humour and nourishing a sense of humour through slapstick comedy and jokes. Sense of timing of a joke and the way a joke is narrated makes it humorous. Our recent festival of art for autism had a special
workshop on comedy and humour. Two young men were trained to make others laugh by clowning expert Naree Shields from Australia
Theatre training may be very effective specially with adults in the spectrum in tapping the creative potential. To identify the Emotional Intelligence and lack of it and work on areas of sympathy, empathy, intentions and self-esteem. Theatre definitely helps adults to connect with others in a meaning ful symbiotic way. Theatre also releases the blocked energy and releases a person from inhibitions. There are many centres and schools working with children and many therapeutic modes are available. But with adults? It is a pity to see 25 year olds still going to school. We need to really develop centres where they may live independently pursuing “ what they are good at” : music, painting, photography, carpentry and anything that fires their mirror neuros. Theatre offers multiple opportunities : write a script; design the sets; design costumes; do make up; do public relations; run a coffee/sandwich shop at the theatre foyer; do lighting and compose music. And do stand-up comedy and act if that is your passion. Let us exploit the infinite possibilities through Theatre.
References:
Baron-Cohen.S.(1995) Mind Blindness.Cambridge. MIT Press
