2015 // On and beyond the Stage

Curatorial project: live art at the Kunstraum Niederoesterreich.

Artists: Sööt/Zeyringer, Laia Fabre, ‘SCHOOL’.

Curator: Anat Stainberg

‘On and beyond a Stage’ 

Performance is a time-based act of communication, involving some people in the role of the artists and some in the role of the audience. The common understanding of this equation is simple; the artists create a live artwork. The audience perceives the performance, witnessing or participating, they read through the different elements involved. The artists expose a new arrangement of elements that fits their purposes; amongst the material they choose from – sound text image (etc), the artists design as well the persona they will present themselves with. The way they will behave while performing. 

The audience does their part as well; they listen look cough whisper laugh snore fall-asleep or leave the place slamming the door. They show themselves by behaving as well.

The first platform of direct communication amongst people is the body hence body language. How we hold our body, how we behave it and our facial expressions, make more of an impact than our actual physical form. We build our body language and develop it throughout our lives. We start by trying to communicate our urgent needs to our early caregivers. And we continue by trying to communicate our identity to our social surrounding.

Our body language is made of our basic physical tendencies. And the behaviors we see around us; those we like we copy, integrate and train by behaving them in social settings. We do this more or less the whole time, more or less consciously. 

This is also how we get to know the people around us. Often, we believe they are who they appear to be. 

Often, we end up believing ourselves. We think: ‘this behavior represents my personality, this is me’.

But it isn’t. It’s an act we choose and design to fit our ideas about ourselves.

It is our ‘self-character-act’.

“I’m just an advertisement for a version of myself” (David Byrne)

Performance is a real time event. There is no attempt to create a poetic fantasy like in the theater. Everyone involved knows it’s happening here and now, to us. But this ‘us’ or ‘I’, is a pretense that is played with, it’s a self-character-act, a most valuable and influential component of any performance. 

The specific approach or style the specific performance artist choses to deliver a work with, becomes a part of the performance’s aesthetics and collected meanings, influencing the ways in which the time based communication act enfolds. And it should receive a rightful focus.

The performance evening ‘On and beyond a Stage’ presents a variety of positions towards the act of performing one’s ‘self-character-act’;