Operation Ambassadors - Marilyn Arsem

2007

ACTIONS IN RESPONSE TO SITE

In this workshop participants will create performance actions as a direct response to observation of a particular environment or social context, examining how aspects of a site can be used to generate performances that are unique to that location. Participants will be responding to the site’s history, current uses, and various materials that are found at the location. They will also be considering how the architecture or design of a space, influences the way both audience and artist bodies move and interact. Experimenting with how art might infiltrate daily life, and how performance functions with a public who are not expecting to encounter art. Questions of documentation will also be addressed, finding ways to record actions without impacting the experience of the audience.

ON PRACTICE

This workshop will be structured as an opportunity for in-depth discussions about each participants individual practice. The workshop will address ideas about what shapes an artist’s personal approach to developing performance work, and consider the methods which can be used to evaluate what is produced.

Participants will be considering examples of their own documentation, discussing issues such as- how do they define the notion of “presence” in performance? What influences the kinds of preparations made prior to performance actions. What individual rules have participants evolved, consciously or unconsciously? What do they each consider to be the role of the viewer/witness?

From these initial discussions participants will develop and present short performances, in which they will be encouraged to experiment with different types of performance, exploring the breaking and remaking of their own established rules .