The Mobile Statue Talk

The talk will focus upon the relationship of immobility and movement in live performance across a variety of genres: dance, theatre and performance art. It will consider the immobile performer (the human statue) as one pole upon a continuum of movement.

It will do this by studying a number of examples. 

The use of stillness in Stanislavskian actor training.

The area of corporeal mime (after Etinenne Decroux) known as mobile statuary - a form of highly articulated body movement that is directly inspired by statue forms.

The conceptual dance performance While We Were Holding It Together (2006) which features five immobile performers onstage whose involuntary shaking is the movement that accompanies a text about representation.

The immobile performer in performance art works such as Yoko Ono in Cut Piece (1965).