Nikolai Demidov and the Path that Opens Again
Nikolai Demidov (1884-1953) was one of Stanislavsky’s closest associates for more than 30 years, he was the original editor of Stanislavsky’s An Actor Prepares and, as Stanislavsky stated before he died, his only student who could understand his system.
Their acquaintance goes back to 1907, when Leopold Sulerzhitsky introduced Demidov to Stanislavsky. Demidov’s theatrical background, his scientific knowledge as a psychiatrist, especially in the field of the “psychology of creativity” in relation to the function of the subconscious, his way of studying the esoteric disciplines in relation to art and the spirituality of his own nature, made Stanislavsky ask him, in 1919, to leave the medical profession and devote himself entirely to theatre and the science of acting, as it was evolving at that time.
For more than 30 years, Demidov was an indispensable partner for Stanislavsky, particularly when it came to introducing the principles of yoga into Stanislavsky’s teaching and the free development of the actor’s creative process.
However, Demidov’s personal research on the organic technique of the actor surpassed the analytical methods of the “system.” Demidov cultivated the principles of the affective synthesis and set the scientific grounds for the use of the subconscious as a major component in the development of the actor’s intuition and the free flow of his true life on stage.
In the early 1920’s, when Demidov was the Head of the Moscow Art Theatre School and the most credible teacher of the system at that time, he began to develop a new type of stage exercises (etudes) which aimed to fight the shortcomings in the separate study of the “elements” in Stanislavsky’s method.
Driven by the need to liberate the actor through the free flow of the subconscious, by his sincere love and his profound respect for the actor and his art, with deep faith in the need for consistent everyday scale work and in the actor’s right to inexact (creative) repetition, Demidov tried to restore the actor’s role as a creator and not as a mere executor.
The etudes and the scales Demidov invented for the actor’s training and the restoration of his perceptive and reactive ability, without the obstacle of intellectual processing, were extremely groundbreaking and revealing even since 1930’s.
However, Demidov’s spirituality, his scientific precision and the disarming way, in which he transformed the subconscious into a vital tool for the actor’s true life onstage, labeled him as “dangerous” for many decades.
From 1930 and up until his death in 1953, Demidov tried unsuccessfully to publish his five indispensable books, in which he records the values and the principles of his approach and presents with admirable scientific precision, artistic sensitivity and pedagogical responsibility the process of training and cultivating the affective actor.
Eventually, the exclusion of this charismatic teacher from the Drama Schools of Moscow, forced Demidov to wonder away to Finland, the Sakhalin Island and Mongolia in order to find fertile ground and implement and develop the school of acting he firmly believed the art of the actor deserves.
After his death, Demidov’s revolutionary technique, which was greatly esteemed by both the artistic and the scientific society of his time, disappeared diligently for more than 70 years, thanks to the efforts of Stanislavsky’s strictly devoted descendants.
Up until the first decade of the 21st century, Nikolai Demidov’s name was known only to a very close circle of experts.
Την τελευταία δεκαετία, η έκδοση του έργου του έδωσε το έναυσμα για να ξαναγίνει γνωστή η μοναδική παιδαγωγική και καλλιτεχνική προσέγγιση του Νικολάι Ντεμίντοφ. Κύριος φορέας και εμψυχωτής της μετάδοσης αυτού του τρόπου έρευνας και δουλειάς είναι σήμερα το Demidov Association και ο επικεφαλής αυτού, ο σκηνοθέτης και καθηγητής Andrei Malaev Babel.
Η παγκόσμια θεατρική κοινότητα, την τελευταία δεκαετία, ήρθε σε επαφή με τη “Σχολή Δημιουργικής Ελευθερίας” του Νικολάι Ντεμίντοφ και επιτέλους άρχισε η συστηματική προσπάθεια αναβίωσης μιας μοναδικής μεθόδου διαρκούς καλλιέργειας και ισόβιας εξάσκησης του ηθοποιού και των δημιουργικών αντανακλαστικών του.
Οι χώρες, οι καλλιτέχνες και οι εκπαιδευτικοί φορείς που εφαρμόζουν αυτές τις μεθόδους είναι ακόμη περιορισμένης κλίμακας. Ήδη, ωστόσο, υπάρχει ένα ενεργό δίκτυο συνεργασίας, προκειμένου αυτός ο τρόπος να εφαρμοστεί σε ευρύτερη κλίμακα και να κερδίσει επιτέλους την θέση που του αξίζει στο σύγχρονο θεατρικό κόσμο.
Οι ειδικοί και πολλοί από τους καλλιτέχνες και τους δασκάλους, που έχουν ήδη ασχοληθεί με τη μέθοδο, αναγνωρίζουν ότι οι δρόμοι που υποδεικνύει ο Ντεμίντοφ αποτελούν “την παιδαγωγική του μέλλοντος” της θεατρικής τέχνης και θεωρούν ότι το “μονοπάτι” του Ντεμίντοφ, θα αλλάξει το τοπίο στην εκπαίδευση της νεότερης γενιάς ηθοποιών και σκηνοθετών.