Phillip Zarrilli is a performer, director and theorist, internationally known for training actors using a psychophysical process combining yoga (especially Hatha Yoga) and the Asian martial arts (Kalarippayattu and Tai Chi Ch’uan). He is the first westerner to have undergone full-time, long-term training in Kalarippayattu. He also studied Yoga and t’ai chi.

Since he began his training in 1976 at the C.V.N. Kalari, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, South India under Gurukkal Govindankutty Nayar, he lived in Kerala for seven years, and continues to return regularly. In 1988 he received the traditional pitham (stool representing past masters) from Govindankutty Nayar. He also trained at the Kerala Kalarippayattu Academy, Kannur, with C. Mohammed Sherif Gurukkal, and under Sreejayan Gurukkal and Raju Asan. He studied Yoga with Chandran Gurukkal in Kannur and Dhayaniddhi in Thiruvananthapuram. He specializes in northern style kalarippayattu, full-body massage (uliccil), and complimentary yoga. He trained in t'ai chi ch'uan (Wu-style) with noted theatre director and East Asian scholar, A.C.Scott. He has conducted workshops, "Making the body all eyes..." throughout the world, including Esalen Institute, Utrecht School of the Arts, Passe Partout, National School of Drama (New Delhi), Centre for Performance Research (Wales), (London) International Workshop Festival, Gardzienice Theatre (Poland), among others. For over twenty years he was Director of the Asian-Experimental Theatre Program in the U.S.A. where he taught classes daily.

He regularly directs theatrical productions with actors he has trained including recent highly acclaimed productions of Samuel Beckett's plays with Theatre Asou (Graz, Austria, 1999), and at the Grove Theatre Centre, Los Angeles (2000, and forthcoming). He is the author of numerous essays and books on kalarippayattu and other traditional arts of Kerala, and his comprehensive study of the martial art, When the Body Becomes All Eyes: Paradigms, Practices, and Discourses of Power in Kalarippayattu was published by Oxford University Press (1998; paperback 2nd edition, 2000). He has also written widely on acting and performance, including publication of Acting (Re)Considered: Theories and Practices (Routledge Press, 1995), and in writing a book on his own approach to actor training, Acting..."at the nerve ends:" A Psychophysical Approach.

Phillip Zarrilli is Professor of Theatre/Performance at Exeter University.

Phillip Zarrilli is internationally known for utilizing the techniques and principles of embodiment in kalarippayaattu, yoga, and t’aiquiquan for training actors and dancers to paradoxically 'stand still while not standing still' and to allow their 'body to become all eyes'.

The training allows the performer to develop a heightened sense of activation through breath in movement, focus/concentration, circulation of energy through the body and relationship to the performance/spatial environment through the development of the performer’s awareness. He regularly conducts long-term training programmes at his private studio in Wales—Tyn-y-parc C.V.N. Kalari/Studio, in London, and throughout the world.

Zarrilli utilises intensive training and workshops that 'teach focus, concentration, discovery and use of inner energy (prana or prana-vayu, and sakti), and bodymind integration through Asian martial/meditation arts including Chinese t’ai chi ch’uan (Wu style), and traditional South Indian hatha yoga and the closely related South Indian martial art, kalarippayattu. Training as well as intensive workshops focus on the breath, and movement integrated with and through breath.

Emphasis is on repetition of basic psychyophysiological forms at beginning, intermediate, as well as advanced levels in order to access "stillness at the centre" and eventually allow the body to "become all eyes"--an optimal level of intuitive awareness/consciousness. Through these beautiful, fluid movement forms, the work is of equal use to those involved in dance, theatre, martial/meditation arts, or anyone interested in unlocking the body’s natural flow and internal energy.

Zarrilli’s training and workshops usually empahsize and provide opportunities to apply the principles and training to performance. Application to performance circumstances takes places through a series of structured improvisations. The work is then further applied to work on texts such as plays by Samuel Beckett, Ota Shogo’s Station trilogy, etc., or in individual coaching sessions.

Intermediate and advanced training/workshops teach advanced sequences, and weapons work, beginning with staff, then progressing through short-stick (ceruvadi), otta, dagger, sword and shield, mace, etc.' from http://www.spa.ex.ac.uk/drama/staff/kalari/workshop.html

Recent workshops include intensive training sessions with: The Centre of Studies on Jerzy Grotowski (Wroclaw, Poland), Maski Festival (Poznan, Poland), Dublin International Theatre Festival (Thomas McGinty Memorial Workshop), Tainan-Jen Theatre Company (Taiwan), Samuel Beckett Centre and Trinity College (Dublin), Practice Performing Arts Professional Training Programme (Singapore), National Theatre of Greece, Seoul International Theatre Festival (Seoul, Korea), Gardzienice Theatre Association (Poland), Passe Partout (Netherlands), Esalen Institute (USA). Zarrilli is also well known as a director and actor, and his most recent productions include The Beckett Project in Ireland (2004), The Water Station (Esplinade with TTRP, Singapore, 2004), The Dance of the Drunken Monk with Sangalpam (Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, UK Tour 2003), Speaking Stones (Theatre Asou, Graz, Austria and Wroclaw, Poland, 2002-2004), Walking Naked with bharatanatyam dancer/choreographer, Gitanjali Kolanad (Mumbai, Chennai, Seoul, USA, Glasgow, etc. 2000-2003).

Zarrilli has devised this training as an alternative to the ‘cognitively based model of psychological/behavioral creation of the character’ (Zarrilli 2002a: 194). Through his training he achieves an optimalisation of performer awareness that allows him to approach non-naturalistic authors (such as Beckett, Kane, Genet, to mention but a few). This training is especially designed to teach ‘focus, concentration, discovery and use of inner energy and bodymind integration’. The training focuses on ‘breath and movement integrated with and through the breath.’ The emphasis is on the repetition of specific psychophysiological forms to allow the body to reach an optimal level of intuitive awareness/consciousness.

'Through assiduous attentiveness to breath, this (kalarippayattu) is not simply a form of physical training of the body, but a training toward an alternative bodymind awareness and consciousness - a way to actualize a state of concentration in relation to the spatio-temporal environment. (Zarrilli, 2002: 157)

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For Phillip Zarrilli's website see [link]

For an interesting article on the application of Zarrilli's method to Beckett rehearsals see [link]

References