Isabel Lewis
Ballistic Body

BALLISTIC BODY A ballistic body is a body which is free to move, behave, and be modified in appearance, contour, or texture by ambient conditions, substances, or forces. This workshop strives to find a new mode of performative expression which is not clearly derivative of performance art, nor of theatre, nor of contemporary dance while perhaps touching aspects of all of these modes of performance. Ballistic Body is an intervention in a space with people and ideas. This workshop is concerned with training the senses in a way that the body can be responsive in a performative situation. I try my best to steer away from proposing an aesthetic or physical ideal and try, rather, to emphasise attention to each individuals physical history with all of its influences: cultural, learned, accidental, or otherwise. The body is central to this work as the interface for the clashing or synthesis of ideas and concepts. Characters are suggested but not fully formed. They are developed through costuming, speech, and movement in order to provide a level of fictive distance from notions of identity. This semi-characterisation is a strategy I use to facilitate the use of the body in a way that is not locked to static notions of gender or race. This also allows an immersion into the content of the work that facilitates new approaches and a playful circumvention of irony or cynicism. Language in this work is used not to convey a storyline or reveal a character but to give voice to a process of thought unfolding in real time. Additionally, text can proposition an event into space. It is used to create relationships between subjects and interweave the fictional with what is assumed to be real. Content is collaged and drawn largely from the internet, pulling from numerous sources (news, popular culture, art, the everyday, etc.) and connecting ideas that seem unrelated in order to find new connections amongst them.