24.
One of the most interesting provocations of recent times was Marina Abramovic’s insistence at her curated live art show at last year’s Manchester International Festival that the audience should undergo a period of ‘initiation’ (her word) before they were admitted to the gallery. One might well feel anxious about the liminoid insularity this could bestow on the work, but it’s certainly true that we arrive for most theatrical encounters underequipped for their fullest demands: and when I say ‘we’ I mean makers and actors as well as audiences. I want theatre to promote attentiveness, because nothing else currently does, and the quality of political thought and cultural analysis that we’re capable of is enfeebled as a consequence. Tim Allen and Andrew Duncan, in the introduction to their collection of interviews with poets, Don’t Start Me Talking, say this, which I love: “Attention is a pure good. What brings states of high attention, is successful as art without further ado.” I’d rather compel people’s attentiveness through irresistible seduction than through bootcamp crash-course workshops in meditation or whatever, but it’s all good.
Showing posts with label Manchester. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Manchester. Show all posts
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
23.
It is, to be specific, 10.15pm Friday 21st May as I write these words. I’m in a different hotel room further downtown and I can barely hear the signals of central Manchester on a Friday evening above the noise of the aircon. Both the ice machines in the hotel are broken so I’m drinking warm diet Coke. It’s diet Coke because exactly a year ago in yet another hotel in Manchester I did the home test that revealed that I had become diabetic. All this is instantly, specifically, the case. I’ve just done the last performance of a new piece called Where You Stand which is partly made out of a collaborative blog. Working in that way reflects the question that burns most ardently for the moment. How can the work I make speak in high fidelity to the complexity of how we now live and the almost overwhelming challenge to work towards living better, in a way that feels less violent, less exploitative, more equitable, more joyfully queer? For the last couple of years I’ve had three tenets in mind, that I try to make every piece of work conform to. I thought I’d have improved on them by now, but I haven’t. I’ll finish up by talking about those.
It is, to be specific, 10.15pm Friday 21st May as I write these words. I’m in a different hotel room further downtown and I can barely hear the signals of central Manchester on a Friday evening above the noise of the aircon. Both the ice machines in the hotel are broken so I’m drinking warm diet Coke. It’s diet Coke because exactly a year ago in yet another hotel in Manchester I did the home test that revealed that I had become diabetic. All this is instantly, specifically, the case. I’ve just done the last performance of a new piece called Where You Stand which is partly made out of a collaborative blog. Working in that way reflects the question that burns most ardently for the moment. How can the work I make speak in high fidelity to the complexity of how we now live and the almost overwhelming challenge to work towards living better, in a way that feels less violent, less exploitative, more equitable, more joyfully queer? For the last couple of years I’ve had three tenets in mind, that I try to make every piece of work conform to. I thought I’d have improved on them by now, but I haven’t. I’ll finish up by talking about those.
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