Manifesto of the Autonomous Body in Friction

Corporeal mime and live sound as a practice of action and relation

This manifesto does not describe a method nor propose a closed pedagogical system.
It affirms a position, an ethics of the body, and a mode of relation that manifests itself through practice.

1. The irreducible basis

Corporeal mime as a technique of action

Corporeal mime was not born to illustrate emotions, to narrate stories, or to produce beautiful forms.
It was born to remove the body from automatism.

Isolation, segmentation, counterweight, suspension, and decomposition are not aesthetic ends, but instruments to free the body from conditioned reflexes and render it capable of conscious action.

A body that acts does not allow itself to be led.
It constructs its own internal organization.

2. Live sound as force

Live music is not support, atmosphere, or accompaniment.
It is a body organized in time, charged with impulse, insistence, and pressure.

To place the mime body in front of live sound is to expose it to a force that attempts to organize it.
The gesture is neither to follow nor to confront, but to negotiate without submitting.

Sound immediately reveals whether there is action or merely form.

3. What this practice is not

• It is not dance. Movement is not the object, but a possible consequence of action.
• It is not musical theatre. Music does not lead emotion nor organize the body.
• It is not reactive improvisation. The body does not respond to stimulus. It sustains decision.

When the body seeks fluency, visible musicality, or rhythmic coherence, the work has been abandoned.

4. The fundamental distinction

Movement is not action.

• Movement is bodily variation in space.
• Action is a decision sustained in time.

A body may remain immobile and act fully.
It may move intensely without acting.

This practice insists on the capacity to remain in decision under sonic pressure.

5. The role of the musician

The musician does not accompany, does not illustrate, does not facilitate.
They enter as an autonomous body, with the right to silence, attack, withdrawal, and insistence.

Their presence puts the actor’s autonomy to the test.
They do not govern the other’s time nor occupy the center by default.

Two bodies coexist without prior hierarchy.

6. The scene as friction

When body and sound coexist without submission, a specific space emerges.
Neither harmonic nor chaotic.

A space of friction.

The scene is not built through immediate agreement, but through tense coexistence between distinct organizations of time and space.
It is in this friction that presence becomes concrete.

7. Inevitable consequence

The body that acts correctly in relation

Everything described so far remains within the field of action.
But this action produces a clear consequence.

A body that acts without submitting to external stimulus
a body that does not react automatically
a body that sustains decision without imposing domination

is a body that knows how to relate.

This practice rejects bodies that impose themselves and bodies that obey.
It affirms bodies capable of negotiating presence.

Bodies that recognize the other as a real force without transforming it into authority.
Bodies that enter relation without prior hierarchy.

In dominant logic, relations are organized through superiority or inferiority, command or submission, conduction or response.
Here, this logic is suspended.

The body that acts correctly:

• does not impose itself in order to dominate
• does not withdraw in order to protect itself
• does not organize itself to please
• does not disorganize itself to resist

It sustains its action while recognizing the existence of the other.

Live music makes this ethic visible.
As an external force, it demands real negotiation.

The body neither absorbs it nor fights it.
It recognizes it and acts from itself.

This is not neutrality.
It is relational responsibility.

8. Final commitment

The scene as an exercise in coexistence

This manifesto does not propose a style nor an aesthetic.
It proposes a practice of relation.

Responsibility of the actor for their action.
Responsibility of the musician for their presence.
Responsibility of the scene for not organizing automatic hierarchies.

When two bodies coexist in space without one governing the time of the other, something rare occurs.
The scene ceases to reproduce models of command and begins to experiment with other forms of coexistence.

The body that acts without submitting does not seek to win.
It sustains.

The body that does not impose itself does not abdicate itself.
It affirms itself.

Music, as another body, is neither adversary nor guide.
It is partner in continuous negotiation.

Theatre happens when distinct bodies manage to exist together in time without resorting to domination or obedience.

Here, the body acts.
And in acting, learns how to relate.