Today’s pathway session was about performance art. Before today, I did not even know the difference between performance art and performing arts. In the morning, we did some performance exercise. It started with very limited instructions about when to start or what to do or when it will come to an end, everything sort of evolved organically. One person’s response to the space can trigger someone else’s reaction, slowly, all the movements in the room created a very intense and lively energy in the space.
There was no logic or framework the beginning with, we built the logic and framework together as a collective group of people in the performance. I kept asking myself, would I act the same way if I was the only one in the room? What does each movement mean? My unconscious response to someone’s movement was what triggered the next movement in the group. Some gestures were suggestive. It provided a clue or hint for what could be done next and some people in the group detected that signal and acted on it. In the process of performing as part of the act of the collective group, each performer lost their individual identity and became an element in the performance.
I noticed when a new element was introduced to the scene, sometimes it redefines what we were looking at and evokes some new ideas and response. For example, we started with a sculpture structure made from furnitures in the room then I decided to sit on one of the chair within that structure. By doing so, I became part of the sculpture. I introduced the idea of human body being part of a structure, then someone joined me immediately after that. Then they started interacting with the structure and making sound. Then sounds created rhythm, rhythm prompted more movements and sounds, just like that, an improved performance piece was created by all of us. It was instant, temporary and irreproducible.
RCA Graduate diploma 2019 