Connecting Through Movement (CTM) will research, create and test the first transferable frameworks for using Jacques Lecoq’s physical theatre pedagogy to address the defining pressures of the twenty-first century – environmental degradation, social precarity and injustice, exclusion of marginalised communities, health/well-being and cultural upheaval. Lecoq’s pedagogy is centred on the principle that ‘tout bouge’ (everything moves). It is based upon a journey of embodied identification with the more-than-human and on imaginative physical transformation. It encourages interdisciplinary learning, collective processes of creation, and embodied awareness of environment, culture and kinship – suggesting important potential in fields beyond theatre, such as ecology, social change and health.

Despite the global impact of Lecoq’s pedagogy, to date there has been no comprehensive critical assessment of the innovations emerging from this work and their social and cultural utility, little theorisation or practical interrogation of this transcultural ecology of practice and its significance, and no research into how the pedagogy might continue to evolve in response to present and future challenges. Jacques Lecoq (1921-1999) is one of the most influential theatre pedagogues of the twentieth century. His approach has dispersed far beyond the Paris school where it originated in 1956. More than 5,000 alumni from around the world now work in over 80 countries, adapting the pedagogy to their local cultural, political, social and ecological contexts. His School in France has continued after his death, alongside at least 15 associated schools around the world established by alumni.

The four objectives underpinning this project are: 1) to generate new knowledge about innovative adaptations of Lecoq-based pedagogy by practitioners trained within this lineage; 2) to interrogate the relationship between these adaptations and their geographic, social and eco-political contexts; 3) to critically assess the transferability and value of these adaptations within and outside of theatre; 4) to explore the potential for Lecoq-based practice as an embodied research methodology. Each phase of the project aims to create ethical and sustainable impact for UK and international theatre-making and training through toolkits, publications, workshops, sharings and online resources (e.g. podcasts and case studies).

CTM will examine the work of artists and organisations from a variety of performance landscapes and socio-economic contexts, including the work of our project partners (Ecole Jacques Lecoq (France), Clod Ensemble (UK), Friches Théâtre Urbain (France), La Mancha (Chile) and Magnet Theatre (South Africa)), as well as international companies and artists from both the Global South and North. The project will generate new theoretical and practical frameworks for the application of Lecoq-based pedagogy within and beyond contemporary performer training (e.g. use of neutral mask work to develop environmental awareness). By creating a global network of practitioner-researchers, CTM will facilitate testing, application and dissemination of this new embodied knowledge across the international theatre education/training sector and the Lecoq diaspora, benefitting teachers, scholars and practitioners in the UK and beyond.

Through the creation of new embodied research, frameworks for practice, comparative datasets and training models, CTM will generate a critical, comprehensive and impactful account of Lecoq’s influence, create new global collaborations, and provide innovative models for the use of movement within theatre education (e.g. innovative ways of using movement to engage with other subjects) and as a research methodology within theatre and other fields (e.g. accessing embodied knowledge around otherness and the more-than-human within environmental studies) and for non-extractive research practice.