Viewpoints is a movement-based pedagogical and artistic practice[1] that provides a framework for creating and analyzing performance by exploring spatial relationships, shape, time, emotion, movement mechanics, and the materiality of the actor's body.
Rooted in the domains of postmodern theatre and dance composition, the Viewpoints operate as a medium for thinking about and acting upon movement, gesture, and the creative use of space.
Overlie's Viewpoints and practice are seen to contribute greatly to the postmodern movement in theatre, dance, and choreography, grounded in its opposition against modernism's emphasis on hierarchical structure in performance creation, fixed meaning, and linear narratives.
The practice subsequently constitutes a shared agency of creation amongst performers and creators in working through the individual body and its surrounding material environment as part of a collective ensemble.
[6] For Overlie, this shift in attention re-defines art and the role of the artist from a "creator/originator" mindset to what she called the "observer/participant," which centers on "witnessing, and interacting, ... working under the supposition that structure could be discerned rather than imposed".
The information of space, the experience of time, the familiarity of shapes, the qualities and rules of kinetics in movement, the ways of logic, how stories are formed, the states of being and emotional exchanges that constitute the process of communication between living creatures ...
[2] In the book, the authors outline the basics of the Viewpoints training they both espouse, as well as specific methods for applying their expanded practice to both rehearsals and production.
[19] Additionally, Suzanne Bing's Musique Corporelle contains a series of nine musical elements for actor training that bear a strong family resemblance to the nine Viewpoints.