Body Buffer Zone and Proxemics in Blocking / John C. Stockwell and Clarence W. Bahs.

This paper investigates the effect of personal body buffer zones on compositional arrangements staged by novice directors. Relationships between directors' concepts of personal space and their projection of its dimensions into staging are studied through the use of a variety of proximity measures--distance, area angles of approach, and physical contacts. The results indicate a positive significant relationship between body buffer zone scores and proxemic measures in novice female directors only and not for males, as had been hypothesized. The experimenters attribute the difference in results for male and female subjects to the fact that females' perceptions of their bodies tend to be more concrete than males' perceptions. The parallel between female body buffer zones and female blocking is most likely a function of the clarity of the female's body image and, relative to males, a readiness to employ it as a frame of reference in blocking situations. The implications of this study are discussed in terms of their relation to training methods and exercises for theatre direction courses. (LG)

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