PERFORMANCE AS ENCOUNTER

When the essence of the performance is encountering another person, the artistic work takes place where something moves between people.
The stage is where we touch each other.

 

 

Realm of the Invisible (2008) was a part of the research year led by myself and Julius Elo on the subject of Body of the Spectator in a Performance. It was a live installation composed of bodily one-on-one encounters, and the spectators where led blindfolded from one performer to another. It took its participants into a series of situations where they encountered another person within a frame that was outside of the conventions of everyday reality. We especially focused on creating intimate connection between people; thus the performance demanded quite a lot from its audience. We explicitely asked them to be close, vulnerable and loving.

 

 

Belief (2010) was a guided performance that could take place anywhere within an urban environment. The participant encountered a guide and together they traveled in the city, framing it anew. The guide would sense the inner movements of the guided and the outer movements of the city all throughout the guidance, searching for a path through them. Each performance would differ radically from the others, because both the guided and the city would be different each time. When meeting the one to be guided, the pre-conceived plans of the guide would be shattered and the performance would unfold as a shared creation of the two of them.

 
 

Photos: Jan Ahlstedt