Wednesday 18 February 2009

"a rhythm that was all their own"

I've written earlier about the two-part nature of 9 Billion Miles From Home, and the front-of-house issues that entails (a task-based performance running for up to 50 minutes before the advertised start time).

At the National Review of Live Art, given that it is a festival with lots of other things going on, that durational performance/ritual/set up time was billed separately on the programme as "Process", immediately followed by "Performance". We found that having it billed like this, and opening up the entire circle-making ritual to the audience, meant that it was treated more as a durational performance by some audience members who came and went during the work. Other people though were in for the start of the 50 minute process and stayed right through both "halves".

Mark Fisher's response to these two halves of the piece has provoked an interesting discussion on the Guardian Theatre Blog.

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