Jacques Lecoq

Jacques Lecoq (15 December 1921 – 19 January 1999) was a French stage actor and acting movement coach. He was best known for his teaching methods in physical theatre, movement, and mime which he taught at the school he founded in Paris known as École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq. He taught there from 1956 until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1999. Jacques Lecoq was known as the only noteworthy movement instructor and theatre pedagogue with a professional background in sports and sports rehabilitation in the twentieth century. Life As a teenager, Lecoq participated in many sports such as running, swimming, and gymnastics. Lecoq was particularly drawn to gymnastics. He began learning gymnastics at the age of seventeen, and through work on the parallel bars and horizontal bar, he came to see and understand the geometry of movement. Lecoq described the movement of the body through space as required by gymnastics to be purely abstract. He came to understand the rhythms of athletics as a kind of physical poetry that affected him strongly. Following many of his exercise sessions, Lecoq found it important to think back on his period of exercise and the various routines that he had performed and felt that doing so bettered his mind and emotions. In 1937 Lecoq began to study sports and physical education at Bagatelle college just outside of Paris. He received teaching degrees in swimming and athletics. In 1941, Lecoq attended a physical theatre college where he met Jean Marie Conty, a basketball player of international caliber, who was in charge of physical education in all of France. Conty's interest in the link between sport and theatre had come out of a friendship with Antonin Artaud and Jean-Louis Barrault, both well-known actors and directors and founders of Education par le Jeu Dramatique ("Education through the Dramatic Game"). While Lecoq still continued to teach physical education for several years, he soon found himself acting as a member of the Comediens de Grenoble. While Lecoq was a part of this company he learned a great deal about Jacques Copeau's techniques in training. One of these techniques that really influenced Lecoq's work was the concept of natural gymnastics. This company and his work with Commedia dell'arte in Italy (where he lived for eight years) introduced him to ideas surrounding mime, masks and the physicality of performance.