Framing Statement

Framing Statement
for
The Range of Acceptable Outcomes

I call this piece a performance lecture because I have definite ideas that I want to transmit. I call this piece a lecture performance because I want to inundate the audience with a lot of information, maybe some new ideas and I am not so concerned that people follow and remember every word, but more that the words wash over them, giving them more of a feeling than an idea.

In a more strictly movement oriented dance performance every movement is seen and rarely can the viewers remember or recreate the movements. The constant onslaught of movement in such a performance overwhelms me, not allowing me to digest each individual movement, leaving me with a general sense of the movement quality. The movements in relationship create a feeling, a sense, an experience that stays with the viewer. The individual parts are lost but the whole is understood.

In this piece, The Range of Acceptable Outcomes, I am trying to create a similar experience with the words. Not all of the ideas will be remembered or immediately understood, but hopefully a feeling, a sense, an experience will stay with the viewers.

Using the concepts of the Three Stages of Creation and The Six Performance Elements, I aimed to create an event to question the need to know the process of the creation of a work. How much does an audience need to know to enjoy the work? Does the audience need to know whether or not a piece is set or scored? Does the audience need to know what material the artist is sourcing?

The piece itself was created with a talk about "cracks" that I had with Jeanine last semester in mind. We were talking about one of my showings. For her the piece had no cracks, no way in for the audience. The inundation of information in The Range of Acceptable Outcomes - "facts" about the spectrum of choreography and improvisation, the asides, the stutters, the reference how this piece should be viewed, the quotes of Mary Overlie, Deborah Hay, and A Chorus Line - is an effort to create "cracks". Maybe cracks is the wrong term. Maybe tendrils or rhizomes is more appropriate. Some of the information in the inundation might trigger a thought or a question, leading the viewer down a pathway not directly connected to what is happening on stage. Poetry, if you will.


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