The performance of breathlessness on the page

Abstract

This thesis formulates a practice-based approach to performances of breathlessness on the page. It investigates breathlessness as a subject of creative practice through performance writing, creating different works that function as material object, site as well as score for future performance permutations. These works each examine different aspects of breathlessness, with a focus on the corporeal, affect and between-ness. The relationship of these performance works to the body, affect, time and duration establish the performative possibilities of writing and how this specific form of artistic practice contributes to discourse surrounding live work. My research does not distinguish between the contributions of practice and critical analysis. The outcome of the research is three works, one of which is embedded within this document, and a critical analysis that explores the different ways breathlessness performs on the page. Key to my research is a negotiation of understandings of lessness. Breathless performance writing posits a concept of lessness as other than absence. The ability of the practice-based work to initiate experiences that engage with the body, time and duration also demonstrate forms through which writing can generate as well as directly participate in performance. This research contributes to the field of contemporary performance and theatre practice by defining the live in relation to writing as well as developing a concept of lessness. The distinction between writing and performance leads to unnecessary schisms between the two disciplines. This body of research demonstrates the ways in which performance writing bridges these disciplines to initiate live work. This research disrupts conventional and binary definitions of breathlessness, performance and writing. Performance writing initiates live experiences for audiences of one or many, unbound to any one point in time, capable of generating multiple but unique live encounters with performance.