Live Art Scores
Dr Joanne ‘Bob’ Whalley (personal tutor during Theatre and Performance degree 2019) Introduced the embodied research world of live art. During my studies, I practised a range of live scores and performance techniques with and apart from my fellow graduates, enhancing our academic research and understanding of cultural embodiment.
Similar to music scores, live scores are devised by an artist or collective and describe a series of instructions that, when followed, creates somwhere between an almost perfect replica or a totally new performance. Singularly and collectively, we evolve and perform these live performance experiments. Taking elements and combinations of scores transcends the original essence, whilst still honouring the intension of the instructing artist.
We practise and repeat a range of group/individual scores in municipal/workshop space, utilising innate body knowledge in experimental explorations of identity as self-expression – subversion of hierarchical and elitist political systems. Rooted in theory and lived experience transcends language across oppressed groups: our bodies performing gender, race, disability, class. As group and individually my practise reflects ‘impaired’ body as canvas to explore physical restrictions, subverting hegemony. Beyond studying, I have continue practising and repeating cultural embodiment.
Influenced heavily by Marina Abramović’s ideology of the immaterial within performance, I have rehearsed provocations from prominent live performance artists such as Vito Acconci and Katherine Araniello, adopting, adapting, shaping live art practise:
Dancing Like Nobody’s Watching: weekly silent discos within municipal spaces. Exploring perceptions of public/shared/free space, reclaimed through the immaterial. Practising in my sling medical, prescriptive equipment as opposed to my wheelchair gives an ironic lens on lockdown restrictions
It Will Come If We Wait: DaDa, DaDa, DaDa, a toilet seat raising 41.5 minutes of waiting. Inspired by 102nd anniversary of the first DaDa International Exhibition, I wait patiently for a lift that is covered in graffiti and has wires hanging out – because waiting for a broken lift is like waiting for integrity
Following Piece: a shared narrative venture exploring the public sphere, where participants follow in the footsteps of someone else in that space that you can relate to through their appearance or mannerisms. This practise rediscovers shared space and redefines proxemics within these spaces
Elevator Queue: (my own provocation) legitimising and subverting the wait to use a lift in amongst able bodies who could choose to use stairs. A peaceful form of protest acknowledging the lift is the only means of access for disabled bodies. Some can choose to wait, and others are forced to wait
This series is a process of researching and embodying different artists’ scores. As groups/individuals, we adapt and repeat, amplifying individuality and commonality whilst subverting perceived hegemonic barriers – personally, within these durational performances, my body exposes ableist structures and perceptions of ‘pity’. These embodied approaches magnify ways of seeing, critiquing and connecting to body and space.
[Background image: black and white faded image of Hugh in his sling wearing headphones]