“ABAIR”: IMPROVISATION AS A ‘FOLDING IN’ TO THE CONTEXTS OF PERFORMANCE

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This paper will present and consider the processes of making and re-visiting the improvised performance “abair” which included a projected text poem used as a score for the performance, spatial installation including books and other texts and soundscape applied to textual transitions within the film. It will present a reading of Charles Olson’s ‘breath’ as a consideration of the knowing necessary to make decisions or move within the action of improvised performance. Crucially this performance comes out of a relationship to ‘Performance Writing’ and a tracery of that tradition will be explored to emphasize its particular influence followed by some of the poetics that were central to my stance particularly in relation to the dynamics inherent in improvisation. It will then introduce the call provided by the gallery to which this project responded and outline how the preparation for the performance developed and how the conditions in the here and now of that performance made their own demands.