'The moment you are not inwardly moving and inwardly participating, you are dead' – Chekhov Technique in Actor-Movement and Dance

This chapter is concerned with the ways in which Michael Chekhov’s technique is currently used in actor-movement, dance, and the crossover between them, both in terms of training and making. The chapter refers and responds to the archives of Chekhov’s work at Dartington, as well as extending to include current experiments with the technique. Examples of the latter are drawn from practitioner interviews, my own practice as a movement pedagogue and performance-maker, as well as discussions at the New Pathways praxis symposium session in 2016 on Chekhov’s Technique in Actor-Movement and Dance. The notion of crossover, of blends and bridges, forms a key theme in this discussion, as there is no ‘pure’ application of Chekhov’s technique in actor-movement and dance. I therefore take a selectively genealogical approach, to help us understand the web of overlaps and influences in contemporary practice. Such genealogy enables a non-linear dialogue between past, present, and future projections, and thus constitutes a form of feminist historiography: It acknowledges that the emergence of physical practices — both in Chekhov’s time and now — can rarely be ascribed to one ‘original’ source, but rather ‘occurs in the interstices’ of collaboration, cross-fertilization and silent transfer of embodied knowledge (Foucault, 1977: 150).