What does physical theatre have to do with it?

I was asked recently why I'm training with Playback Theatre. Oh yeah. Forgot to tell you. I'm training to be a Playback performer. What is that?, you ask. Well, it's a troupe of artists enacting stories from the audience using improvisational theatre and music.

It sounds very vague. I know. That is because like any performance art, it comes to life on stage, face to face with an audience. It cannot be translated onto the page or the screen.

It involves listening to a member of the audience tell their story and then bringing it to life in front of them. It uses a variety of dramatic techniques and forms to create living sculptures, Greek choruses, pantomime, tensions between a pair of actos just to embody the emotions and the essence of the story told.

As a writer, I'm gaining a better understanding of how to writer for performers by learning how to enact using the body as a tool.

This past weekend was about just that. Anna Yen, a physical theatre practitioner, trained us in her particular style of physical theatre, allowing us to give flight to our imaginations using tried and tested methods used in Europe and Asia.

The most important thing we learnt was that the shape of the spine creates dramatic tension. Nobody had told us that when you make a spiral which moves and transforms, you affect the viewer. You create story through action. This has inspired me to learn how to direct physical theatre, which means learning it, really.

The closet choreographer inside of me revelled in the idea that you can almost dispense with dialogue and with stage directions and you can create of piece of theatre just from a treatment or a short story even.

My only dilemma now is how to translate it onto the page for another director. Suggestions are always welcome.