CTR proposal
Trying to find outlets for writing about the current project. Site specificity isn't the most interesting part of work, but is involved, and provides a decent frame to talk about a third option in the treatment of space-
Working title: Where you’re at.
My, admittedly personal, definition of site-specific places the site first: I find a site that excites me and I wonder what performance it would create. Learning what the site requires comes first – it points toward content, shapes the structure and is the design.
For the moment, let’s place that work on the one extreme of a line.
On the other end, let’s put the box set for the show rehearsed in a hall that shares no architecture with the final venue and is built to fit in the back of a truck.
A huge space exists between these two extremes, but little language to talk about it. What is between “normal” and site specific? What borders on them both, not quite either?
It is this space that I wish to investigate in this piece, using my recent (and on-going) work as a dramaturge on PR’ MfI (conceived and directed by AH) which will be performed at the end of May at X Space Gallery in Toronto and the beginning of June in Montreal at Quartier Éphémère (an old Foundry.)
When I became involved, H referred to the project as site specific, yet didn’t have a space in mind. Certain ideas were clear to her – she didn’t want to use a theatre, she wanted to be in residency at the performance venue for as long as possible, she talked about small people in a big space. Many of our initial discussions revolved around our differing language about site-specificity.
We have worked since February on solos with each dancer/performer, presenting open rehearsals in Montreal and Toronto – each on engaged with the physical space (Studio 303 in Montreal and Hub 14 in Toronto.) We are now creating the group piece in rehearsals that frequently move between our studio and the gallery. We are at the crux of finding what our relationship (not quite site specific, definitely no box set) with space is, and it’s this crux I want to examine in this article for Canadian Theatre Review.
Working title: Where you’re at.
My, admittedly personal, definition of site-specific places the site first: I find a site that excites me and I wonder what performance it would create. Learning what the site requires comes first – it points toward content, shapes the structure and is the design.
For the moment, let’s place that work on the one extreme of a line.
On the other end, let’s put the box set for the show rehearsed in a hall that shares no architecture with the final venue and is built to fit in the back of a truck.
A huge space exists between these two extremes, but little language to talk about it. What is between “normal” and site specific? What borders on them both, not quite either?
It is this space that I wish to investigate in this piece, using my recent (and on-going) work as a dramaturge on PR’ MfI (conceived and directed by AH) which will be performed at the end of May at X Space Gallery in Toronto and the beginning of June in Montreal at Quartier Éphémère (an old Foundry.)
When I became involved, H referred to the project as site specific, yet didn’t have a space in mind. Certain ideas were clear to her – she didn’t want to use a theatre, she wanted to be in residency at the performance venue for as long as possible, she talked about small people in a big space. Many of our initial discussions revolved around our differing language about site-specificity.
We have worked since February on solos with each dancer/performer, presenting open rehearsals in Montreal and Toronto – each on engaged with the physical space (Studio 303 in Montreal and Hub 14 in Toronto.) We are now creating the group piece in rehearsals that frequently move between our studio and the gallery. We are at the crux of finding what our relationship (not quite site specific, definitely no box set) with space is, and it’s this crux I want to examine in this article for Canadian Theatre Review.
posted by Jacob Zimmer at 11:04 AM
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