Thursday, April 26, 2007

Sometimes it is hard to draw an argument for a research of language when all the tools available to do it are nothing but language itself. The attempt seems to generate a knot of selfreferencial discourse and as one tries to express a meaning, the meaning is nothing but the structure built, within it the ability to grab, draw and engage the reader. Again what comes to attention is the importance not strictly of a final meaning nor of a plot (in a practice sittuation), but of the sequence of words, the embroidery of sepparate meanings creating poetry or, if not poetry in the sense we define it, some body of the sort which exists and weighs upon us in itself, with no other purpose but its presence to be felt.

As I have defined it, I am researching language. I had known this for a while before writing but it was not until some weeks that I expressed it fully, put it into simple words. I am looking at how language (visual and verbal) can be used to create a performance, not through a predetermined script, but through a simultaneous development of language and performance, in order to communicate the subtleties and beauty of language in itself. The plot becomes of second importance as the discourse, its textures, rhythms and colours approaches, attacks or lie upon the audiences. The inttention is not to drop the plot, not to extinguish narrative, it is also using these that discourses are developed, in order to bring them to light, however language should not be the means, but like in poetry it should shine brighter.

I have been looking quite a lot at Becket, the way he works with language. Although, his plays are constructed from a very defined script with precise dialogues/monologues, and stage directions, it is language that counts the most. It weighs like a bag and has shape and presence as something squeezing or softening the audience. Phillip Glass, in a documentary of Einstein on the Beach, comments how the emotional high of the play always happens in a different moment as you repeatdly watch it. It is always a different experience altered by the audience's perception on each night. It is different from conventional scripts, where in the communication of plot is the most important, its heros, events and romances.

Finally, the devised performance opens up for change, as language and performance are constructed together, they are always shaping and reshaping each other. It becomes an always transforming piece.