Ars Una. The teaching of the mimic method after Orazio Costa

Abstract

The article investigates the teaching of the mimic method after Orazio Costa. Nourished by poetic, philosophical and neuroscientific instances, the mimic method was imparted by Costa to generations of students, firstly at the Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica and at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and, later, at the Centro di avviamento all’espressione in Florence and at the Scuola di espressione e interpretazione scenica in Bari. Aware that a failure to formalize the method would compromise its diffusion, Costa leaves the future of the method to his pupils, giving them the task of continuing the inseparable paths of research and teaching. The article is based on some interviews made with several currently active teachers, during which the main questions that remained opened in the dialogue with Costa were addressed: their condition as students; his passing the baton to them of; the content that their teaching and research on the method has pursued; finally, the issues regarding the education of a new generation of teachers.