A whip, a carrot, a boombox. A stopwatch, a bottle, a tape-measure, fragments of text...: 34 objects, three performers.
Metrology is a playful choreography of signs and their constantly shifting meanings. Moving on continuums between the comic and the tragic, the formal and the informal, this work constantly places the viewer in a position of rewriting the text of the performance and her understanding of it, of figuring out the rules of the system and questioning her expectations and her relationship to the work.
An apparatus of objects and performers, Metrology is constructed out of raw materials (text, objects and actions) which were extracted from pre-existing texts. These materials were then rigorously treated and entered into a new context. The systems generated produce new significations creating a new text, a new object that dialogues with that that it was and that that it becomes in the spectator’s mind. The performers function as mediators, as facilitators of this system performing tasks which are interdependent. Time is brought on the surface in the work both through the repetition and accumulation of images and tasks, but also through the physical presence of objects like a metronome and a stopwatch.
As a text the performance is made and then destabilized through the repetition, refunctioning and recontextualization of language, objects, images and actions. The viewer is invited to actively read the work, to continually see the relationships among text, objects and performers anew; to transform it and to reflect on her position as its co-author.
Metrology deals with text both as an event and as language that is rewritten, playing with and exposing its construction. It questions our ideas about what theatre is and how we watch it. It asks questions about the nature of the engagement between performers and spectators and their co-production of meaning. The possibilities of this encounter are explored through the presentation of Metrology as a system that functions within another system, that of the context of its presentation. The work gives the space and time for the viewer to explore its territory. It promises to create moments of surprise and images that will linger in the mind of the viewer long after the end of the performance. Technical Information:
Duration: 36 - 40 minutes
Space needed: Ideally the work is best presented in a space with dimensions of 8.5m width and 7.5m depth but can be adjusted to a slightly smaller space.
Technical requirements:
- 2 microphones on stands and an exta stand (no microphone)
- 2 microphones on stands and an exta stand (no microphone)
- A "technician" that simply presses play and stop on a CD player and turns a floor light on and off.
- An electrical outlet to plug in a CD player = boombox
- A floor light
- I was wondering whether you might have available or you can refer me to a person / place
in Sheffield where I may be able to find the following:
- a white or black chair
- a table (size can be about: 120cm x 60cm or 150cm x 75cm or two tables
about 75 x 75cm)
Per
Performance 2
Title: Muddle, Muddle, Toil and Trouble: Disorder and Potentiality
This works functions like an installation. It should be available for spectators for 5 hours or more. The duration of each loop is about 35 minutes (one spectator per laptop, each spectator experiences it individually like one-to-one, but three spectators can be in the room every time)
Space: A quiet empty room
Tech Requirements: 3 laptops, 3 headphones
Per
No comments:
Post a Comment