11-May / NERD ALERT! / 0 COMMENTS

 

As part of my ongoing research of historical acting I am now in the process of reading Joseph Roach’s book “The Player’s Passion” and using it as grounds for some practical experimentation with relevant  repertoire.

 

Right at the opening chapter, I came across this translated quote from Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria 11.3.114, 112, 100-01:

 

“Wonder is best expressed as follows; the hand turned slightly upwards and the fingers are brought to the palm, one after the other, beginning with the little finger; the hand is then opened and turned round by a reversal of this motion”.

 

Roach puts this quote as one of the examples for the modern criticism to the relevance of rhetorical acting today.

 

When I read the description of wonder best expressed, a whole image jumped into my head. A vivid scene to which a very familiar gesture would suit very well. Where I come from, we this gesture “Lama ma kara”. It took me a while to find an actual description with some explanation to what it is all about. Here is the closest thing I could find:

 

“With your fingers open and hand pointing upwards and  twisting your palm at the wrist, back-and-forth, a few times, you are actually asking “what do you think you are you doing?” ” (Source http://www.anglo-list.com/general-3/about-israel/israeli-customs-behavior-etiquette)

After finding this description, I decided to look into whether the modern gesture exists as part of everyday body language anywhere else outside of Israel. I asked a colleague of mine who lived in Greece for 8 years, and she recognized it immediately as the gesture to express either “What do you want?” or “So so”.

 

Although their meaning is not the same, the modern gesture being more specific and common, especially in Israel, both express wonder. Taking into account the physical similarity between the two descriptions (modern and classic), their geographical origins, and the fact that the modern gesture is integrated into the Greek as well as Israeli everyday body language, it seems relevant  to consider this information when trying to integrate this gesture in historical acting today.

 

I guess the next step would be looking into other historical gesture treatises, seeing how they physically interpreted Quintilian’s instructions, where and how they suggest to use it. For the sake of clarity, I would like to create a few gifs that would demonstrate what I just wrote about in this post. So stay tuned!

Let me know what you think in the comments below. If you have any ideas of something I should read to further this research or someone I should talk to- let me know as well.

Body language Gesture Institutio Oratoria Joseph Roach Michal Bitan Quintilian The player's passion