I have just received from Robert Thurmer, director of the Eleventh
Cleveland Performance Art Festival a copy of the following review of The
Unspeakable Rooms by Amy Bracken Sparks in The Plain Dealer, Friday May 22
1998:
"Those who left after [the featured performance] missed one of the most
stunning performances the festival has ever presented. A stark,
stripped-down, minimalist work, "The Unspeakable Rooms" is an
interpretation of a performance text by sound poet Alaric Sumner, but it
also could have been a year in the dark night of the soul or human Angst
personified.
"Performer Rory McDermott first made a video of himself in various
positions and movements, which was rear-projected onto a screen, in front
of which he mimicked his 'other', or played off him. The beautifully
recorded audio track began with breathing, as all things do, working up to
non-verbal sounds, echolalias of physical and psychic despair before
launching into the poem itself, which was layered and doubled.
"McDermott's performance was utterly committed and terrifying,
beginning in fetal position and rising to full cathartic contortions. The
poem was intense and emotional and often obscured by layered sounds or
McDermott's vocalisations. From the hoots and hollers and long applause
that followed, the work by the men from Devon, England was clearly the
favourite.
"The lesson here. The featured performance may not be the best."
The video is actually front projected.
Otherwise, I am fairly happy with this review!
Performance Writing
Dartington College of Arts
Totnes
Devon TQ9 6EJ
http://www.dartington.ac.uk/prospectus/pw.html
Virtual publication: text of 'error studies and portraits' in issue #1 of
Cartograffiti (ed. Taylor Brady)
http://wings.buffalo.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti/contents/poems.htm
l
Cleveland Performance Art Festival
http://www.performance-art.org/weekone.html
Selected Physical Publications:
Aberrations of Mirrors Lenses Sight (RWC)
Waves on Porthmeor Beach (words worth)
Lurid Technology and the Hedonist Calculator (Lobby)
Rhythm to Intending (Spectacular Diseases)
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