Organiser : School of Performing Arts, University Of Malta, under the auspices of Performance 21: Twenty-First Century Studies in Performance.

Title: Case Study: Paper Boat – an embodied response to sites/places and memories (Co-presentation with Shelly Quick)

Abstract
Paper Boat is a site-responsive performance that was inspired by an essay of Juhani Pallasamaa: ‘Space, Place, Memory and Imagination: The Temporal Dimension of Existential Space’. Paper Boat travelled to a variety of cities in different states of change, all moving at different speeds of ‘experiential reality’, some seemingly more in danger of what Pallasma has described as ‘cultural amnesia’ than others. These countries were Myanmar, Singapore, Brazil, Sri Lanka, and Germany. The performances took place over a six-year period from 2008 to 2013. Throughout, the performance was constantly evolving and changing in its design and approach as it travelled to the various countries. My collaborator and I treated the core structure of the work, a physical score, and certain objects with which we worked, as a site of negotiation, a hybrid place in which to graft, to interweave, the site and culture of the country that was hosting us.

 The performance was interactive and attempted to open a still, contemplative space for the audience (and ourselves), a space in which to slow down and excavate the parts of us lost in Pallasamaa’s ‘dizzying acceleration of the velocity of time today’. Paper Boat combined an evolving choreographic score with site-responsive elements, and opportunities for the audience to have a voice through recordings and pieces of writing that were part of the narrative interwoven into each performance. It was a hybrid of pre-existing structure and audience and culture driven design.

 This presentation will outline some of the cross-cultural processes and choices we had to make, as well as attempt to articulate the issues faced in each environment. Each cross-cultural encounter created different possibilities, demonstrating the necessity for such performances to continuously evolve in response to the environment in which they are performed.