updating
4 September 2009
I haven’t been able to keep up with this writing online. In part this has to do with having a few other commitments, but I think it has mostly been to do with the density of the working process. The worst part is that because it has been some time I don’t quite know where to start.
Yesterday we had a closed sharing (not sure if calling a showing a sharing is a Place thing, or a UK thing) for about 6 or 7 people. I’d started the day thinking we were going to organise ourselves for the showing, but we began talking about the last scene or ‘cell’ for the work and didn’t stop until 15 minutes before we were scheduled to begin. This has been a common situation … we start talking about the ramifications of various actions or words and then stay with that line of thinking. The discussions are not easy – we have quite distinct ways of thinking about dramaturgy, and also the ‘personal’ within the structure or form-content of the project. The discussions are frank, complex, and often heated. They have made me think a lot about what processes of negotiation are involved in collaborations. This is so different from the idea of making compromises, something that Elizabeth Boyce and I considered in detail as part of a residency at Performance Space in Sydney in 2005 (there is a document online at http://skellis.net/lab/Collaboration.pdf in which discuss the word negotiation in relation to collaborative practices).
This work (which is, I think, going to be called “Colin, Simon and I”, or “Colin, Simon and me”) is increasingly revolving around questions of identity within relationship dynamics: the degree to which we need each other, the extent of difference, absence and presence within performance (and the demands of an imagined/real partnership). If there is a story it might be thought of as the way in which I become defined by Colin’s absence and/or disappearance. But this is too simplistic with respect to the dynamics of power that are present in the work’s form-content.
Perhaps most significant is the ‘type’ of work it is. The cells (and their actions) are very loosely structured (some hardly at all), and the possibility for change/difference in each iteration of the work is high. There is a strong feeling of uncertainty in the performance (or my experience of it) that is underpinned by considerable attention to the conceptual, psychological, and dramaturgical possibilities. This makes for a curious mix of total commitment to building a complex (emergent) dialogue around self/other, presence/absence, and audience/performer, that is then ‘tested’ within various performance scenes. It is as if the rehearsal of the work is in dialogue alone (not quite), that then builds a base of mis/understanding that ‘fills’ (or loads?) the actions/improvisations with a very nuanced set of performed exchanges.
I haven’t really worked this way before, and it seems unusual just how strongly the body can be filled with language that can propel it into something else.
But that’s enough for now.
Oh, this week we were joined by Cobie Orger in the studio. Cobie provided a very clear (and patient) voice in criticising and responding to the things she was seeing/hearing. It was a deep pleasure to get to hang out with her, and to listen to the clarity of her voice (and such a welcome change from listening to Colin and I yabber on - not that we really stopped). But now she’s off back to Australia.
Oh (2), the ending … how to avoid or subvert the notion that my role is somehow transformed as a consequence of Colin’s disappearance? But is he disappearing? (Colin and I differ on this). But Colin is also curious to know what (or how I) might ‘appear’ as the other of his ‘disappearance’.
Heady.
