Performance made for the ELIA symposium event "The Beginning of Now" celebrated at the Manchester Metropolitan University on the 18th to the 20th of October of 2023.
This event discusses the future of art education by bringing provocateurs of several backgrounds and subject matters such as sustainability, design, sociopolitical activism, inclusivity, equity, etc.
As a student practitioner, I had to actively engage and respond to the concepts, layers and insights that were discussed throught the 3 day event in a solo-piece proposal. Through my theatre background, I wanted to question the audience awareness of their own physical presence in this enclosed space for cultural exchange.
D R A M A T U R G Y:
1. During a quick break before the closing ceremony started, I sneaked into the auditorium with my fellow student practitioners, Elia staff and MMU crew, whilst the audience members were outside.
2. We disrupt the chair organization and we all lay on the ground performing the act of sleeping and then waking up. I told the students to imagine quotidian spaces such as a bus coach, Bensie's building design tables, a bench, or even their own beds.
3. Now when the audience members came back, they had to decide how they are going to engage with the performance that is taking place.
4. The mayority of the audience members neglected the bodies and kept talking for about 5 minutes, waiting for an authority figure to resume the agenda. However there was no figure and the noise of the whole auditorium continued to increase through time, somehow making the audience aware the minutes that have passed through.
5. Then, my iPhone alarm starts to ring. Though its very low compared to the audience noise, people can start to address the sound and change their receptiveness towards the performance: Why is there an alarm ringing? Who's gonna stop it?
6. The student practitioners start to wake up at their own pace, heading up to the main stage where I was the last one getting "ready for the NOW".
7. On stage, I used the word "NOW" as a mantra to communicate both with the students and the audience:
J PABLO: NOW
AUDIENCE: NOW
J PABLO: NOW!?
AUDIENCE: NOW!
SILENCE
J PABLO: Now we are ready.
8. Then I proceed to speak a monologue regarding the body, performance and their accesible features about the future of arts.
This was a quick reflection on Presence, what does it means to be present here and Now. Probably one of the most personal and intimate actions, to sleep and wake up disrupts what seems to be a liminal space.
this room, is an in between of what all of you have made before and what is yet to come, these chairs, are in between the ground and being standing up, a place for waiting, resting, individually or in groups, a bus station, a place between the origin and the destination. what are we waiting for…today? Recalling Baruch Spinoza: what can a body do? And in a personal way: "How do I sit in this body?"
"Bodies are an open dynamic system of exchange, constantly producing modes of subjection and control, as well as of resistance and becoming, an energetic locus for cultural production. a concept I believe may be more useful in rethinking the subject in terms of the body." Lepecki, A. (2006). Exhausting dance: Performance and the politics of movement. Routledge.
That being said, practice as research methods such as Performance, theatre, dance, they enhance the art experience by reframing our relation with the object, becoming the space, subject and observer all at once, but also, and most importantly, it provides a much more accesible notion for future practitioners on how art walks, sleeps, awakes and in synthesis, how art is present in todays world.
Thank you
NOW we are ready is a performance about how we tend to forget the value, meaning and capacities of our presence in the present moment.
As the name of the event (The beginning of NOW) I answer with this question:
How you become the NOW?
This kind of performance is aimed towards privileged and unaccesible spaces of cultural and political exchange, within the formalities embodied in the audience members, how can I shift the dynamics and put a light on hidden notions that even if we want to neglect them, are present, such as Commodification of a discourse.
This event wasn't as accesible as it might be, the lack of student from the same university weren't present in an active and engaging manner, they become a background, a breathing wall that tunes the experience from a distance.
This performance should be realized in interior spaces that could fall into the liminal category: It is not a bedroom where I could sleep, but neither is a backyard where I can walk my dog, is a place in between, for waiting, resting and listening.
REFERENCES:
Lepecki, A. (2006). Exhausting dance: Performance and the politics of movement. Routledge.
Nelson, R. (2006). Practice-as-research and the problem of knowledge. Performance research, 11(4), 105-116.
Haseman, B. (2006). A manifesto for performative research. Media International Australia, 118(1), 98-106.
