From this week’s theory session, and John Howell’s Solo In Soho I have learned a lot about the expansion of performances beyond just speech. It is important to remember how my performance links to society and that “Everywhere someone talks, someone listens” (Howell, 1979, 152). It is therefore key that I engage the audience by talking but it must be something that is listenable. Increasingly, “interior talk” and the aspect of an “unqualified personal statement” (Howell 1979, 152). In other words private thoughts are being made public and an opinion on those thoughts is expressed as exactly that, an opinion. I would really like to talk as if in confidence to the audience , expressing my deepest thoughts however expressing these through my own experiences, my own opinions. To be classified as art, which I would like my work to be, it “at least appears to be more by virtue of it’s being less aesthetic” (Howell, 1979, 153). The personal testimony that I want to produce must be reconstructed, perhaps as a stream of consciousness , to highlight it’s honesty.
I also love the imagery of “audio visual technology to create verbal environments” (Howell, 1979, 153). Words are floating around with no meaning, though arranging those randomly strung words together creates a magical solo performance. Accinci’s performance The Red Tapes inspired me , especially through the “unrelated scenes separated by a blank screen and voice over readings” (Howell, 1979, 153). By playing with the audience’s perception the audience experience the material in two different ways . I thought I could incorporate this notion into my performance. Perhaps I could include repeated words which was proven in this production to add an impression of reality. I don’t want to separate the audience from each other as I feel this would lose the intimacy and confessional scenario I desire, I could do something at the same time as a recording so that my audience are expressing the performance in two different ways .
It was furthermore important to me that I was myself , rather than in the previous week when I played the character of an interviewer, or as a comic; an exaggerated caricature of myself “through non-acting or acting out rather than “acting” (Howell, 1979, 154). Sometimes, as Robert Wilson and Lucinda Child’s work does, a presentation can “project a large inner space of free flowing disturbance” Both performers show no relation to each other and the audience try to convert the language of these , and struggle , imitating “verbal clatter ” (Howell, 1979, 155). I would love to take this thought and implement it into my performance. I also would like to involve Wilson’s ethos of not telling the audience what it is, but make them question what is it? , just ensure “that each expression arrives from architecture” (Howell, 1979, 155). Thus, taking the structure of my piece and ensuring that feeling and emotion are projected. Through the new forms of parodied performance shown today, I must learn to play with theatricality to distance myself from character, actor and performance.
Robert Wilson greatly inspired me having researched him for my presentation. I was inspired by the use of the surreal on stage, as well as time and space. He was manipulated by negative and confused reaction to his environment. He asks what’s wrong with illusion , in his art, uses striking comparisons, and works with minimalist staging. More than anything the quality that really struck me, and that I wanted to bring to my performance was a journey through life, poetry and the emotional core of the piece.
My presentation on Robert Wilson can be located here- Robert Wilson
Works Cited
Howell, John. Performing Arts Journal , 1979, Vol. 4 Issue 1/2, p152-158