Comment
A Tele-Presence Experiment
A TELE-PRESENCE EXPERIMENT: OPTIK IN SAO PAULO + LONDON First published in BST Jouirnal Optik is a company that works largely in international collaboration producing site-based installation and performance work. As part of a project taking place in Brazil in October 2000 an experiment took place in tele-presence link up between Sao Paulo and London. Preparation The first stage of the experiment took place at Brunel University on Saturday October 14 2001, two weeks before the planned link up with Sao Paulo. Two studios were used. In...
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Performer voices Comments written by the young professionals working on othis project Optik in montreal: xstasis Laura so I’m there in the space, almost crying or rolling on the floor with laughter and I don’t have any intellectual understanding of a why. There’s something really fascinating about that, something really sacred, tapping into something that raw and unpredictable. As moments of synchronicity happened in performance, I felt that the audience instantly became part of them – so much so that I...
read moreWaring Review
Apple Theatre seeks way to bewilderment International Times IT/52 March1969 Wes Waring There are no absolutes in theatre. Stasis occurs when creativity has stopped: the thing that happens then is no longer art. Art is a continuous process, a process of exploration: working in isolation the actor can only examine himself, but when he can elicit responses and establish a direct emotional communication with someone else, the creative and exploratory process is complete. In the long history of western art, compartmental...
read moreUnion Chapel Discussion
OPTIK Live Art Performance Training Discussion following the observed training session and the performance by Optik. Union Chapel London January 28 1996 Chair: Susan Melrose ______________________________________________________________________________ Susan Melrose (SM) I have been watching Optik since 1991. I have watched them through development and changes of performers: addition, subtraction, lousy reviews with people walking out half way through and slamming doors, many successful moments, interesting moments. So I’m...
read moreTank Commentary
TANK Created and directed by Barry Edwards A Commentary by Susan Melrose The end of shared significance Barry Edwards’ latest live work is an instance of a complex performance metapraxis. The primary focus seems both banal and mysterious : what are the bases for performance decision making, by metteur en scene and performer in both the pre-performance and the actual performance work itself ? Are the decisions made of similar implication and ‘meaning’ potential for all participants – that is for the artists and for the...
read moreElizabeth Stewart Discussion
Transcript of an interview/discussion between Barry Edwards and Elizabeth Stewart. Stewart: Looking at notes made after seeing Second Spectacle, I postulated that the piece was built up from a basic story but with crucial things removed. When I asked you about this afterwards, you said that this made the structure less specific and allowed a wider range of possible associations. There are several points to raise here, but first of all, what did you mean by a range of associations? Edwards: The question of the story line is rather...
read moreMeditations on Space
Meditations on Space: Talking to Optik Author: Jackie Smart This article first appeared in BST Journal Early this year, I spent some time with Optik while they were creating their production Space for the Camden Centre, a large Art Deco civic hall. Performed on 18th and 19th February, Space involved 6 performers (the largest number in an Optik production to date) working with a sound and a video artist. Given that Optik’s work is improvisatory and relies very heavily on the performers’ interactions, the space I was particularly...
read moreSighted Commentary
Transcript of a discussion with a student group after a performance of Short Sighted. October 1982 Q: Where does the idea for a piece come from? BE: That’s a good place to start. I bring a set of stimuli to the early rehearsal and we have discussions about the new piece. For One Spectacle I used a folk tale from the Chinese called The Two Travellers and one song from a Schumann song cycle. In Second Spectacle, to contrast with the mood and imagery of our first piece, I turned to the early 20th century, the Futurists and Mahler...
read morePresence Review
Performance Research Journal Routledge January 2004 Moving Bodies Issue A moving meditation on a dead line Tracey Warr interrupted. All the time and eventually irretrievably. Although Bataille sees life disrupting the continuity of death. Continuity and/or caesura. Moving and stopping. Moving. Going. In October 2001 I went with UK performance group, Optik, to Sao Paulo, Brazil (Edwards, 2003). Optik explore moving....
read moreOptik in Egypt
Optik in Egypt Paul Allain interviews Barry Edwards Edwards: Our visit to Egypt came in between our tours of Poland and Germany and included a the major event, a big outdoor performance in Damanhur, Alexandria. Our work had been geared towards Europe, particularly Eastern Europe and this was the very first experience, certainly for me, of going somewhere completely outside of the European tradition. Our first reaction was to the environmental change i.e. towns, villages and cities were not organised in the same way as in...
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