RE: [-empyre-] engaging moment

["Marie-Claude Poulin" <mcpoulin@k-pluriel.org>]

Hello again,

First I want to thank Ben for his generous
comments about the visual material we put last
week on our Website.
I'm sorry that neither Martin or me could come
back online earlier, we are drawning in the
preparation of a presentation in Montreal and
Porto, production realities...

We often wonder why to put so much efforts on
building a LIVE event?
The reality of real spaces, real objects, real
people doing and real people watching is so
demanding in terms of organisation and
communication, it's such a slow and "heavy"
process which we have to carry for sharing it in
the end with some few spectators who will happen
to be present on that X evening where we open the
doors.

I guess Martin and me are fascinated about this
irreplaceable moment of "magic" of what an LIVE
event is...

Ben was answering about audience vulnerability:

> Aren't we always defensive in
> public and reticent to engage in works
> which are interactive or require
> participation. Emotional engagement may
> be slightly safer but I'd bet most
> audeinces prefer to remain dettached.

ENGAGEMENT is maybe the specific quality of a live
event where nobody knows, neither the performers,
neither the public, what the evening will be and
where the degree of detachment/engagement in which
a viewer will put himself will have an impact on
what he will be able to receive from the
performance.

Ben is saying again:

> I haven't seen the
> works in the flesh  but perhaps they
> exist just as powerfully in quicktime
> as they did in larger spaces and
> realtime performance.

The quicktimes of the works are little windows on
a reality which existed once and which will never
happen again. On three evenings of performance in
London for example, one night was just like a
mysterious synchrony of circomstances which made
this particular presentation a "mystic moment"
(dangerous concept?)... when one of the other two
nights was ok, and the third one awkward, even
though these 3 performances were all "the same".

I guess this is why we go for it, despite the
accounting absurdity, and we still make things
which are only existing in the present moment:
because it is somehow diving into the unknown,
because it feels very human and because it is in
the end very exciting...

MC


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