Plotting a path for later steps: Tuning in with Núñez, Rancière, and Sologub

Nicolás Núñez and the Taller de Investigación Teatral have developed a series of immersive or participatory structures and scores to transport participants into an imaginal realm where they have the possibility to slough off their everyday selves and safely enter altered, ecstatic, states of awareness. As the main body of Anthropocosmic Theatre articulates, these practices were developed through a range of encounters with different lineages including Tibetan Buddhism, Stanislavskian actor-training, Grotowski’s post-theatrical actions, and an embodied reconnection with a pre-Hispanic, Nahuatlan, current. Does this mean that participants in the performances and trainings of the Taller lose touch with their embodied reality? Not at all: the practices are designed to assist participants to transform their relationship to reality through progression along a vertical axis from everyday life up through epic/ mythic, theistic, and ritualistic levels with the aim of reaching the level of ‘pure undifferentiated energy’ (Morris, 2017: 173). Without a grounding in the actual practices involved, this can easily sound like a process of spiritual ascent and disembodiment; absconding from material reality into a realm of dreams and fictions and progressively losing touch with our body. The Taller’s work, however, aims at synchronising body and mind with the intention of enabling individuals to ‘have the energy and the courage to maintain [themselves] in the living instant’ (Núñez, p.277 below). The journey is an embodied one which requires an intense psychophysical commitment from the participant, a willingness to generate the energy to attempt a leap to the next level. Each leap, if successful, offers another perspective on our lives, our relationships and the world but, I would suggest, that this perspective isn’t