What is the performative body? We train actors to have the power to transform, to be chameleons. Not the real chameleons that blend into the beige of shower block wall, but the rainbow chameleons of my childhood imaginations who have the power to transform beyond recognition. The training responds to a desire to see expressive bodies on stage, who can channel and give life to the experiences occur beneath the surface.
On the otherhand many theatremakers are working to capture the authentic self onstage, the non-performative body. The drama school dropouts are coming out of the woodwork - in this emerging style of performance the inability to shapeshift is becoming a strength.
Bridget and I are looking to investigate a whole range of performance bodies - the authentic body engaged in task, the expressive human body in dramatic action, the animal body, and hybrids traversing all of these. Interesting within this is the place from which we feel comfortable to speak, and the voice that comes from that. Working so investigatively through the body, text has been difficult to hook into and unleash. Always the hesitation, the adjustment, the reallignment, and the safety mechanisms go up. We are yet to find words in this work. Perhaps we dont need to have them, perhaps we cant have them now. We need to rediscover the free voice, so that we can speak from any position, in any body, in the heat of the moment.
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