Why Demidov and not some other technique?

Most of the techniques break the creative process of the actor into pieces. They offer separate elements that “help” the actor to “build” a role or to “unlock” fragmentary locks in order to face “obstacles” in the “interpretation” of a character. They offer the so-called toolkit, so that the actor can “fix problems”.

But, in the end, this multi-split process might hinder significantly, instead of helping, that longed-for organic quality we all speak about and desire. There are two main reasons behind that:

First of all, the actor is forced to go through intellectual paths that put him in his head. And the head is not a very useful place for an actor to live in.

And second, with these techniques, we probably cultivate in the actor an imagination that is more suitable for a director or for a writer, but not for an actor that wants to truly live on stage and not to imagine outside his body.

Nikolai Demidov, who was one of the most reliable teachers of Stanislavsky’s system, noted these dangers since 1920’s and, with the creative path he suggested, he provided a way out of these dangers.

He had a rare pedagogic nature and love for the actor and he created a method that supports the actor and his freedom on stage, he invented paths that nurture actor’s boldness and self-confidence on stage and found a way to make subconscious a creative partner to the actor who wants to surrender himself to the character, who wants to become an actor-creator and not an actor-executor or “assembler” of fragmented elements.

Nikolai Demidov invented a special kind of etudes that treat the creative process as a whole and allow the actor to have a wholistic rather than a fragmented experience.

Two main organic processes are cultivated by the Demidov etudes, that gradually become complex creative forces in the hands of the actor.

First of all perception, the perceptive ability of the actor. Demidov-trained actor is constantly open, operating out of a place of full allowance and zero resistance to the stimuli that come from within and without. Through the path of Demidov’s etudes, the actor sharpens the sensitivity of his perception to such an extent that he makes intuition the driving force of his art, he perceives, with a great welcoming quality, extremely subtle things (circumstances, energies) that live under the radar of our consciousness. Demidov-trained actor becomes a membrane that is able to perceive extremely subtle impressions and allow the reactions to these impression live fully, truly and creatively.

The driving force of Demidov’s technique is not the action, but the re-action. It all starts with how directly and boldly I respond to the stimuli I receive in the here and now and with how I greenlight the manifestations of this response through my psychophysical apparatus and in the space.

And here comes the second fundamental feature that is intrinsic to Demidov’s technique: unconditional allowance of the impulses and surrender to the organic reactions ignited by the admitting of even the slightest impression. If you don’t slam on the brakes, if you don’t restructure the original and inimitable reaction, if you greenlight fully the manifestations of these reaction through your transparent body and soul, then you lay the foundation for the psychic essence of the characters to be revealed and for the circumstances that gave birth to these characters and their relationships to be materialized in the space.

Unconditional openness to even the slightest stimulus, therefore, and unaltered greenlighting of the reactions they create. This is the root of Demidov’s psycho-technique.