Starting with what is:
The art of this performance is inviting the audience in while you discover. The investigation is for them.
The artist is saying:
“I give you this, while it is mine as well.
I am performing as it comes together
I rely on you to notice
Carrying it inside, out.
I compose work for the audience, every time:
with belief in their ability to see.”
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent and intolerable uncertainty—not knowing what comes next. This is the reason for the research. This training quickens the brain’s connection between Observe+do, observe+do.
The Six Viewpoints is a process that enables performing artists to see beyond their own biases, narratives, and cultural assumptions so that they may engage with what is actually happening around them.
Drawing on the work of Mary Overlie, this workshop focuses on discovering how to liberate the materials of Space, Shape, Time, Emotion, Movement and Story in order to discover how they function on stage and how to create with them. We will briefly focus on locating these materials in a non-hierarchical manner, then move on to performing radical performance experiments and compositions.
The Six Viewpoints training will be supported with both somatic and technical physical practice to begin the day. The somatic practices deepen the ability for whole-body listening and reduce habitualised resistance to perception by establishing a relationship with resilience. Working from a parasympathetic state (relaxed, resilient, and available) allows the participant to be more transparent in their work with one another and with the audience.
The technical training lies in Jean Hamilton’s Floor Barre Technique, which is a pre-movement training that strengthens neurological pathways to the smaller muscles in big muscle groups, trains the mind in subtle noticing of the body, and prepares the body for improvisation.
Sophia Treanor
