Intimacy and environment in the elision between theatre and performance art
Supervisors: Prof. Andre Stitt, Prof. Clive Cazeaux
Research group/theme: CFAR
I am standing naked in a stairwell,
patch-blind. Garments hacked from my body. Trapped eyeless swiping
blades, bird-like, tearing its feathers with its beak; gathering scraps,
unseeing, threaded onto pale string, looping them blindly with swift
stitches. I hold out the needle. White milk spill – choke-drowned,
wretch leaking down my torso. Split paper wound, naked raw-rubbed thigh.
Sexual spit mother connected by spider-thread. Can you see me now?
The inter-relation between theatre and performance art is precarious.
Through practical work and case studies my research investigates the
existence of certain conventions within performance art, paying
particular attention to the effect of the intimate exchange between
performer and viewer.
At the meeting point of two axis, performance art and theatre and
intimacy and environment, the claim of elision explodes theatrical
conventions/representations and presents a number of uncertainties. For
example theatre practitioners and theorists explore theatre conventions
within a performance art context in order to deconstruct the inner
workings and dismantle binary distinctions. On the other hand many
performance artists problematize the theatre/performance art distinction
by consciously exploiting and using elements, which we may expect as
theatrical within their work in order to counter conventions associated
within the genre.
Situated within a landscape of elision this research and practical
application considers the ways in which performance artists wield
convention and the potential effect on the audience/performer relation,
with particular focus on the presence of intimacy within a collective
experience
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