YES! Sandra Reeve’s radical practice of acceptance

‘Yep. Go with it … Good. Follow. Follow. YES! Right.’ Stemming from and moving beyond work with Grotowski during his Theatre of Sources phase, and particularly influenced by the Javanese movement artist, Suprapto Suryodarmo, Sandra Reeve’s ecologically sensitive psychophysical performer training is rooted in affirmative discourses. These affirmative discourses enable the participant’s movement to open up and evolve, rather than tense and constrict. Reeve’s refusal of the prohibitions and exclusionary stopping notes of ‘don’t’, ‘no’ or ‘wrong’, offer a direct challenge to the frequent privileging of the laws and constraints that often surround the machismo practices of severity stemming from canonical male performer trainers. Reeve’s affirmative discourses acknowledge and welcome elements (such as daydreaming, boredom and sleep) that would be banished as disruptive and deemed to be signs of lack of commitment in those master canonical training practices. She offers a feminist model of training forged through a radical form of acceptance.