Description
On Sea/At Sea focuses on the sea as an unbounded, unfixed territory with no recognizable performance cartographies, asking the question – how often does performance go to sea? This is both a literal and poetic question, thus inquiring about specific nautical performances ‘on the sea’, as well as the poetic state of being ‘at sea’, that is, within a fluid, unfixed, or liquid condition. Does the need for survival in this place render artistic, performative expression as something superfluous and trivial? How can a performance culture be shaped by this liquid, ever-moving terrain? Is perhaps, the sea a place where performance is suspended momentarily? We are seldom actually ON the sea and being AT sea is a giving over to the elements, casting off from attachments and moorings.
Contents:
On Sea /At Sea – An Introduction by Sam Trubridge (available for download)
FLOATING TEXTS – WRITING VESSELS
Performance Waves by Sophie Sleigh Johnson
Writing Coastlines: Either and both by J. R. Carpenter
‘A Chain of Creation, Continuation, Continuity’: Feminist dramaturgy and the matter of the sea by Cara Berger
12‑A‑Day: Lighthousekeeping on the Irish Sea by Róisín O’Gorman
Crossing the Line: A rite of passage on HMS Terrible by Sarah Penny
Sounds Nothing Like the Sea by Soundcamp: Maria Papadomanolaki, Dawn Scarfe & Grant Smith. Code by Max Baraitser Smith (supplementary interactive audio work)
BETWEEN THE SHIP – AND THE SHORE
‘The Vessel Will Embrace Us’:Contemporary Pacific voyaging in Oceanic theatre by Tammy Haili‘Ōpua Baker, Sharon Mazer & Diana Looser
Competing with the Sea: Contemporary cruise ships as omnitopias by Melanie Bennett
12 Hours before the Mast by Ian Maxwell
Liquidities: Transactive border spaces and threshold structures (between the harbour and the sea) by Tina Kinsella & Silvia Loeffler
Impossible is Real: Tadeusz Kantor at the seashore by Dorota Sosnowska
‘still every year they went’: Studio performance at sea (artists’ pages) by Reeder & Lamb (see supplementary online audio/video work)
FROM THE COAST – TO THREE OCEANS
You Do (Not) Assist the Storm: A vibrant and affective seascape for The Tempest at Minack, Cornwall by Evelyn O’malley
Writing the Indian Ocean: Immersion in seven waves by Stephen Muecke
Sea-change: Performing a fluid continent (artists’ pages) by Margaret Werry with Dorita Hannah, Ani O’Neill & Amanda Yates
Concurrent Practices by Sam Trubridge & Mick Douglas
Fluid Philosophy: Rethinking the human condition in terms of the sea by Keren Chiaroni
[E]ven my body now lets the light through. by Misha Penton (see supplementary online audio work)
OCEAN PHILOSOPHY – FLUID POLITICS
Oceanic Geographies:The fluid dramaturgy of Caridad Svich by Kevin Brown
The Disappearing Act: Geometries of free-diving by Sara Malou Strandvad & Tracy C. Davis
Swimming in Sewage: Political performances in the Mediterranean by Tania El Khoury
Mare Nostrum, or On Water Matters by Emma Cox & Marilena Zaroulia
SOUND((ING))S: An on-board poetry installation in support of refugees by Amy Evans (see supplementary online audio work)
REVIEWS
Fearful Stories from the Breathless Ocean : Alanna Mitchell’s Sea Sick by Katrina Dunn
In the Wake of It Comes in Waves by Sasha Kovacs
Notes on Contributors
