Getting It: Theatrical Renditions of Performing a Poem

• In Event: 61.058 - Toward an Understanding of Performative Research as Embodied Inquiry

Abstract

This panel will reflect on my process of returning to a poem that had been performed on stage and published on the page. In this return, prompted by the addition of video to mediate rehearsal conversation for a new performance, what emerged was the tension among three elements: 1. getting it ready for public performance; 2. getting it right in terms of the process of creation; and 3., simply getting it, the informal “aha!” moment that represents additional learning in one’s craft.

To share these three forms of getting it, I use a body metaphor to reposition common assumptions on how reality is structured when what is at issue is the body in an embodied performance. Starting with the metaphorical connection of poem bodies and human bodies, I consider the performative possibilities of locating difference within the body.
Like the body of poem, how might we understand the human body as having multiple readings? Like the human body, what if the rehearsal space in performative inquiry could be thought of as constantly changing and becoming more complex in response to discovery and need? Applying these two questions to arts-based research contexts generally, what if in their day to day moments of inquiry the performance poet could embodying a life and mode of poetic inquiry that is an expression of ongoing rehearsal, one that is attentive to public/private mediation of gesture, sound, image, time, self and other.

Author

• Sean P. Wiebe, University of Prince Edward Island