ABSTRACT
Our response was negat ive. Then, in a sitting posi tion, Tortsov executed all manner of move ments
which flowed into each other and formed an unbroken line. ‘And could you make a dance out of that?’ he asked. ‘You could,’ we answered in chorus. Tortsov started to sing some indi vidual notes, with long gaps between them. ‘Could you call that singing?’ he asked. ‘No.’ ‘And this?’ He sang a few sustained, resound ing notes, which flowed into
each other. ‘You could!’ Tortsov started to scribble indi vidual, random lines, dashes, dots and
flour ishes on a piece of paper and asked us: ‘Could you call that drawing?’ ‘No.’ ‘And could you make a drawing out of these lines?’ Tortsov drew a few
long, beau ti ful, curved lines. ‘You could!’ ‘So, you see, what any art needs first of all is unbroken lines?!’ ‘We see that!’ ‘And acting also needs an unbroken line. That is why I said to you that
when the line evens out, i.e. when it is unbroken, you can start talking about creat ive work.’ ‘Look, please, I’m sorry, in life and even more so onstage, can you really
have a completely unbroken line?’ asked Grisha. ‘Such a line can exist but not in people who are normal, only in the
insane and we call it an obses sion. As far as healthy people are concerned, a few gaps are normal and oblig at ory. At least that’s how it seems to me. But people don’t die during these breaks, they go on living, and so each of their lifelines contin ues its forward move ment,’ Tortsov explained. ‘What kind of lines are those?’ ‘You’ll have to ask the scient ists. But for the future we will agree to consider
as normal lines in which a few, oblig at ory gaps occur in a human being.’ At the end of the class Tortsov explained that we need not just one such
line but a whole series of them, i.e. our imagin a tion, concen tra tion, objects, logic and sequence, Bits and Tasks, wants, effort and actions, truth, belief, Emotion Memory, commu nic a tion, Adaptations and other Elements which are essen tial to creat ive activ ity.
