posted by Yomei Shaw
Due to potentially sensitive content (I don't know, maybe I'm being too cautious) and also because I'm not sure about the accuracy of all the details, you can read this post on my site:
http://www.xanga.com/alfaromeoconvertible/616158928/on-the-national-anthem-and-patriotism.html
I also have some more questions about the relationship between audience and performer that I would like to ask:
-How much are the audience 'allowed' to interact? Can the audience participate in the performance?
-Is it possible for the audience to interfere with the performance?
-What will the audience contribute to the performance?
-Is there a diegetic space, since you want to deliberately have no fixed seats or fixed performer positions?
-Are the audience non-diegetic bodies?
-Can the performance take place without the audience? Or will it be an event which can only take place if the audience is there and is noticeably different because the audience is there?
-What if the audience cannot understand your language well?
-What if they can't hear your performance?
-What if they can't see your performance?
In a way, you can compare different types of performances with different types of government: control or lack of control over performers' speech, also who is allowed to speak and when.
The issue of a performance's medium and accessibility I think is also inseparable from a consideration of audience/performer relationship. With television or film this relationship is by necessity visual and aural, because the audience is removed physically and temporally from the performers. In theory this should be where theatre differs from the performance of TV/film. Yet in most theatre I see in Hong Kong (well, in fact which I have ever seen) the relationship continues to be restricted in a similar fashion to mostly vision and listening. Say for example there was a person who was deaf or blind who went to see a theatre performance. (I'm not claiming this would ever happen. . ) In most cases their experience would be extremely limited, because theatre usually addresses the visual and the aural and not the physical (not directly at least). Is a truly physical theatre possible?
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2 comments:
Can the audience participate in the performance?
‘Ways of Participation’ are all subjective in a sense. Again, it depends on how the PLAY progresses and the space of interaction triggered thereupon in the course of ‘performance’.
-Is it possible for the audience to interfere with the performance?
For a LIVE performance, it is an event totally wide open to all potential ‘interferences’. And we all have to judge upon the nature of interferences. There is a very powerful example made by John Cage back in the seventies when he held a ‘concert’ in Italy. When everyone expects to see ‘John Cage in concert’, John Cage is alone on stage stuttering through poems in search of the core of ‘music’. The Concert became a chaotic ‘riot’. John Cage remains on stage and ‘finished’ his ‘music’ as planned in spite of audience throwing things on stage and eventually took over the entire stage. He was not ‘disturbed’ or ‘hurt’. All becomes part of the LIVE recording on his disc called “Empty Words”.
-What will the audience contribute to the performance?
Entirely at the audience’s discretion.
-Is there a diegetic space, since you want to deliberately have no fixed seats or fixed performer positions?
There is a strong sense of narrative space in my work, narrative not ONLY in the sense of words, but also in terms of the multiple viewpoints OPEN for the audience, all depending on the ‘position’ he or she would be taking. Position could be both physical and mental…Living positions are usually not ‘fixed’; they are flows of interactive space, all subject to happenings…since we would be holding two different versions of the work, the first version would be wide open to all audience and the second one would very much a continuation of what the audience left behind in the first version… which means the second time round, a whole new ‘ball game’ would start again since a new group of audience would join in and who knows where they would decide to fix their seats…
-Are the audience non-diegetic bodies?
What do you mean? Could you expand a bit more on this? To me, the audience would all be ‘PART OF THE PLAY’ no matter what, how they would decide the nature of their ‘participation’ would truly depends on the viewpoints they eventually adopt ‘at play’!
-Can the performance take place without the audience? Or will it be an event which can only take place if the audience is there and is noticeably different because the audience is there?
Would that be a ‘performance’ without the present of an audience? Be it a single audience, the play is ON. All theatre work is an event in a sense, i.e. a set of happenings designed to invite interactive energy. How would you see the ‘viewers’ across our rehearsal room, i.e. those temporal viewers far away on the MTR platform? What if we switch places, i.e. we play on the platform and they inside the room?
-What if the audience cannot understand your language well?
It is NOT my job to make the audience UNDERSTAND my work. It is all up to the audience to interpret the performance the way they want. No string whatsoever. If it is a ‘language’ all too familiar, why spending all the time doing it though. To me, theatre is like performing a surgery on special issues. The ‘cuts’ and ‘slices’ are part of the ways to discover things beyond. I cannot force anyone to look into such ‘issues’ or ‘phenomenon’ explored at play. It is the audience’s own decision where to place their mind on any pieces of artwork. We don’t put on ‘lectures’ or a market for consumers…
-What if they can't hear your performance?
Then it is a good time to ask why, both on part of the audience and the part of players. Yet all depends on the nature of questions asked.
-What if they can't see your performance?
Same as above. ‘Seeing’ and ‘Hearing’ is something philosophical. We are all sort of ‘hearing and seeing impaired’ no matter what…
The issue of a performance's medium and accessibility I think is also inseparable from a consideration of audience/performer relationship. With television or film this relationship is by necessity visual and aural, because the audience is removed physically and temporally from the performers. In theory this should be where theatre differs from the performance of TV/film. Yet in most theatre I see in Hong Kong (well, in fact which I have ever seen) the relationship continues to be restricted in a similar fashion to mostly vision and listening. Say for example there was a person who was deaf or blind who went to see a theatre performance. (I'm not claiming this would ever happen. . ) In most cases their experience would be extremely limited, because theatre usually addresses the visual and the aural and not the physical (not directly at least). Is a truly physical theatre possible?
Maybe you could discover alternatives in the course of this particular theatre events. Let me know what you find out.
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