Writing For My Performances

Extract

For the past two and a half years I have been writing, staging and performing in my own work. Most of these performances have taken place in galleries and museums. Before I began doing my own performances, I worked for short periods of time with different theatre artists in New York. Because I considered myself primarily a performer rather than a writer or director, my first performance began with an idea for a particular character. After making the costume and collecting a few props, I went into the space dressed as the character and improvised different actions. I had a vague idea of possible situations beforehand, but I did not write a scenario or make any notes in advance. Although I wrote a small amount of text as I went along, the final performance was based primarily on the improvisations I did during rehearsals. The performance was a vehicle for the character and a vehicle for me as the performer.