Falling behind: politics of body states

Spring performance events at:

Institute of Postcolonial Studies

78-80 Curzon St, N. Melbourne

A series of performance events curated by Elizabeth Dempster and Sally Gardner. This series sees the return of artists involved in the 2006 Politics of Performance seminar series and others; and builds on the Institute’s emerging relationship with Writings on Dance Inc.  Over the course of 4 events, unclassifiable with respect to received genres, the series will investigate different modes of the sensuous (breath, weight, touch, sound). Our aim is to bring attention to body states lying upstream of coded legibilities and to aspects of gesture situated in the ‘margins of the visible’. (Louppe 1997). Communication will be posed as a question of apprehending the live.

2. Listening with Irigaray: the sound of the live. With Margaret Cameron and Helen Sharp

4pm Thursday 24^th September

The question of listening has come to the fore in some recent forums, sometimes with acknowledgement of ‘just how hard it is to focus on listening’ (Dreher), particularly within the highly selective regimes and practices of language use in the academy. This event, led by actor-director Margaret Cameron and body-voice artist Helen Sharp invites participation and reflection around the question of how to ‘do’ Irigaray’s The Way of Love in which the philosopher calls for our ‘attention to present life in its concrete and sensible aspects’ and to re-connecting sensuous existence and words: we are accustomed to applying our attention to and confronting ourselves with a still coded meaning, often forgetting the poietic, rhythmic, melodic, more generally carnal requirements which ought to take part in the passing on of sense.

Falling behind: politics of body states  Presented by Writings on Dance Inc. and the Institute of Postcolonial Studies (IPCS) A series of performance events curated by Elizabeth Dempster and Sally Gardner Investigating different modes of the sensuous (breath, weight, touch, sound). the series aims to bring attention to body states lying upstream of coded legibilities and to aspects of gesture situated in the ‘margins of the visible’. Funded by Arts Victoria.