Gnostic Anointed as College Chair: Grotowski's Theatrical Anthropology at the Collège de France

Abstract

This article reconstructs Jerzy Grotowski's theatrical anthropology based on a series of nine lectures, La "lignée organique" au théâtre et dans le rituel, that he gave at the Collège de France in Paris between 1997 and 1998. In these lectures, Grotowski reported on the dis- coveries he had made on his creative journey along the border of theatre and ritual. At the core of Grotowski's research, which can be described as "the science of doing", was the intention of inducing in the doer a flow of energy. As in alchemy, the inner process followed by the doer in the state of organicity is inextricably linked with his or her body. In this state, the doer is an ánthropos, a total being. This image lies at the centre of Grotowski's theatrical anthropology, an anthropology whose perspective is far removed from that of social or cultural anthropology; it is in fact the perspective of gnosis.