ensemble performance | 1989

A line of performers sits in a line on a platform-stage facing the real audience and mimicking each other’s body position. They represent a formal audience that mirrors the real audience in the auditorium. One performer stands in front of the group, with their back to the real audience, and ‘conducts’ the stage-audience by drawing attention to their own foot or hand through movement. Two performers now vie for the stage-audience’s attention by different strategies that involve moving or standing still. The stage-audience points their fingers to follow the trace of their eyes. They are myopic, their attention span is short and their interest is in anything moving.

The chairs are taken away and the formation of the group is repeatedly broken as the mimicry becomes a way to isolate an individual who has failed to copy the others. The rest form a tight group and the isolated person momentarily becomes an outcast performer.

(Brighton Poytechnic) Brighton Pavilion, 1989