The Work of Sharing

Discussing performance in the mode of performance

Authors

  • Annette Arlander
  • Bruce Barton
  • Johanna Householder
  • Michelle Man

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Keywords:

performance, artistic research, sharing, performing, responding, extending

Abstract

This multimedia essay is describing or rather demonstrating one attempt at dealing with the problem how to discuss performance in the mode of performance, based on the presentation at the Performance Philosophy conference in Helsinki in June 2022. There we—four members of the Artistic Research Working Group (ARWG) of Performance Studies international (PSi)—tried to present and demonstrate in a miniature form one of the methods for sharing we have explored in the working group, and to do it in a hybrid format, with two performers in the room and two performers present via zoom. The three phases of the method (perform–respond–expand) were performed by three members of the group and condensed into three minutes of prerecorded material per person at each stage. An extract of our preparatory discussions on zoom is added to the essay, as well as a link to the working group archive or blog.

Author Biographies

Annette Arlander

Annette Arlander, visiting researcher, University of the Arts Helsinki (Finland), is an artist, researcher, and a pedagogue, one of the pioneers of Finnish performance art and a trailblazer of artistic research. Former professor in performance art and theory at University of the Arts Helsinki, principal investigator of the Academy of Finland funded research project How to Do Things with Performance (2016–2020). Professor in performance, art, and theory at Stockholm University of the Arts with the artistic research project Performing with Plants (2017–2019). At present she is visiting researcher at Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki with the project Meetings with Remarkable and Unremarkable Trees (2020–2021) and Pondering with Pines (2022–2024) . Her research interests include artistic research, performance-as-research and the environment. Her artwork moves between the traditions of performance art, video art, and environmental art.

Bruce Barton

Bruce Barton is a director, playwright, dramaturg, and scholar whose creative practice, practice-based research, and teaching focuses on physical dramaturgies in devised and intermedial performance. His writing on performance has been published in major scholarly and professional journals in Canada and internationally, and he is the author or contributing editor of seven books. He is the Co-Artistic Director of the award-winning Vertical City, an interdisciplinary performance hub preoccupied with exploring the potential of/in/for intimacy in immersive and participatory performance contexts. He is also the Director of the School of Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Calgary, and a co-convenor of the Artistic Research Working Group of Performance Studies international (PSi).

Johanna Householder

Johanna Householder (professor emerita, OCAD University, Canada), works at the intersection of popular and unpopular culture, making performance art, audio, video, film and choreography. Her interest in how ideas move through bodies has led her often collaborative practice. She has performed across Canada and at international venues for 40 years. One of the founders of the 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, she co-edited two books with Tanya Mars: Caught in the Act: An anthology of performance art by Canadian women (2004), and More Caught in the Act (2016). Her current work concerns the vexations of the anthropocene. She has taken refuge in T:Karonto on Treaty 13 territory.

Michelle Man

Michelle Man is a Senior Lecturer in Dance and has been working at Edge Hill University since 2012. Her teaching practice has spanned over more than a quarter of a century and across a range of professional, institutional, and community contexts in Europe and the UK. She holds an MA in Making Performance and her doctoral research explores Light and the Choreographic: Dancing with Tungsten. On graduating from Elmhurst Ballet School in 1989, Michelle pursued her professional career as a dancer, choreographer, pedagogue, and eventually director of her own company in Spain. Her work has been seen in Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Korea, and the UK in both theatre and site-sensitive contexts. Michelle fosters interdisciplinary practice, working extensively with architects, composers, designers, musicians, and circus artists, and is a frequent collaborator with the Basque electro-acoustic collective Espacio Sinkro.

References

Barad, Karen. 2015. “TransMaterialities: Trans*/Matter/Realities and Queer Political Imaginings.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 21 (2–3): 387–422. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-2843239. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-2843239

Barad, Karen. 2012. “On Touching—the Inhuman That Therefore I Am.” Differences 23 (3): 206–23. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-1892943. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-1892943

Barrett, Estelle, and Barbara Bolt, eds. 2007. Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9780755604104

Bennett, Jane. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv111jh6w

Fleishman, Mark. 2012. “The Difference of Performance as Research.” Theatre Research International 37 (1): 28–37. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307883311000745. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307883311000745

Published

30-12-2024

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2024): Performance Philosophy Problems

Section

Articles

Categories

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Copyright (c) 2024 Annette Arlander, Bruce Barton, Johanna Householder, Michelle Man

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