Pil Hansen: Optical
filtration of
performative principles: from Guillermo Verdecchia's words through the
corporeality
of Sara Gebran
In
September 2003 I conducted an interview with the Argentinean-Canadian
theatre
artist Guillermo Verdecchia, in which we focused on dramaturgical tools
and
strategies detectable in and deriving out of his work. In January 2004
I handed
over Verdecchia’s Fronteras Americanas and Verdecchia and
Brooks’ The
Noam Chomsky Lectures to the Venezuelan-Danish choreographer Sara
Gebran.
Along with the scripts I shared a few performative principles distilled
out of
the interview and a piece of advice from Kandinsky: “when taking
inspiration
from another discipline do not copy artistic practices, but learn the
principles of the other discipline and apply your own means through
them.”
Gebran's "Frontiers" premiered in April 2004, in Copenhagen. This
paper addresses the optical channels through which principles were
abstracted
from Verdecchia's work and remodelled into the physical language of
Gebran. I
consider singular indicators of contextual factors - factors such as
different
political situations, cultural landscapes, borders, genders, audiences,
and
criteria of production and reception - all of which effect, place
pressure, on
the necessities of the artist. As well,
I discuss the cognitive and physiological challenge of filtering an
external
source of inspiration through Gebran’s trained and embodied means of
perception
and artistic expression.