Hi Alison,
i've certainly done my fair share of work in and around theatres. In fact
i've been accused of being too theatrical in presenting texts. Andrew Duncan
talks about my 'signalling' vocally (on the 'Skin Upon sKin' CD), some form
of dirty kitchen cloth theatrical term i hadn't encountered before, although
it sounds like fun and if that's what i was doing then i'm happy to have
been doing it. Certainly there are histories of improvisation and poetry.
I've been up to it ever since i started in some form or another, there's
Steve Benson, David Antin. Bruce Andrews is inveterately connected to
aesthetics and politics of improvisation. Allen Fisher, Steve Benson and
myself made an improvised 'play' at Chisenhale Dance Space once. Hmmm.
I suppose that it might be worth trying to work out what 'performance' works
theatre would want to absorb and what it would spit back out. I'm just back
from Partly Writing 2 at which Lone Twin presented a piece made walking back
and forth across parallel bridges across the town's river (one performer on
one bridge and the other on the other) for 18 and a half hours. There was no
script to speak of. People did though come and walk with them and talk with
them. The event gathered pace as it progressed. There is documentation or a
form of 'indirect testimony' to this event having occurred.
Is this theatre? Or is it live writing? Or is it time-based performance art?
Is it a contemporary instant ritual?
i know i know - categories. Huh! But these discussions are tugging at
thorny issues of boundary and i'm keen to hear how others here (as well as
yourself) read such issues. Because to get into the hybrid spaces between
'theatre' and 'visual art' and 'music' is surely more of where this
discussion might be going and then 'performance' becomes the more
interesting term - no?
love and love
cris
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