It’s been three years since I’ve set out to make my own work, but being new to Brussels, how could I resist the invitation?
So here are the rules of the piece:
• Do not attempt to create any original material under any circumstance, use what’s already there – repurpose quotations from parts you have played in the work of others (everything since 2008) including choreographic sketches from the Vienna workshops and various collected texts.
• Do not buy anything – no money spending what-so-ever! The only props you can use are from the Vienna workshops. Also, do not bring anything on stage that doesn’t transform at least once.
• No site specificity, no onstage preset, no restrictions as to when and where and how this piece can be performed. You must be able to take this piece to go, and to go easy.
• Do not attempt to represent or explain anything you are doing on stage – just do it and let it speak for itself. Be clear with your choices and focus on honing your compositional craft while allowing yourself to be generous with your intention – specificity is the death of significance.
• Do not concern yourself with the actual art form you are working in. Dance, theater, performance art, video, sound, blah blah blah. Just follow your impulse and do what you want.
• Do not attempt to distill your work down to a smart, simple, pure, conceptual, formal state – or whatever that means – be theatrical, be complicated, be a hot mess – be yourself.
• Do not compare yourself to others – be smart enough to be ignorant and above all allow yourself to enjoy your research and practice.
• Allow yourself to be visited by the muse of possibility, but if she does not seem to be coming, make a structure and keep working – nothing is nothing, so just do something and keep working!
