"Face to Face"

Addie asks if theatre is in danger of becoming diluted through the cross-pollination with other mediums. She says: “Are we in danger of losing the only truly present artistic expression in service to our technological era and the demands of instant gratification?”

First off, I think that we need to define our terms a bit more clearly. Frankly, I’m not sure where the lines are between performance art and theatre. I’ll sidestep this question for now and instead focus on what theatre and other forms of performance art have in common – i.e. the physical presence of human bodies. Addie says that the “definition of performance art requires the physical body of the artist in order to be ‘present.’” She then says that if the next movement in the evolution of performance art is towards cross-pollination with other mediums (film, images, technology, etc), does that mean we are in danger of losing what is really essential – i.e. the inter-subjective – “face to face” – encounter between performer and audience?

I would like to look at this question from a different angle. The enemy here isn't technology per se but rather, a growing abstraction from our embodidness. Our culture operates from a dualistic mindset, most powerful expressed by Descartes over 300 years ago - cogito ergo sum. We see ourselves as minds which inhabit bodies. More and more we are seeing the tragic consequences of this horrific split. To be truly human is to be body and mind - or rather - body and mind are two sides of the same coin. True human connection therefore, involves physical presence. The more we lose “face to face” contact with other human beings, the less human we become. Phelan quotes the philosopher Emanuel Levinas who believed that all ethics is based upon the “face to face” encounter. To be a human being, is to be open to other human beings. To be fully alive is to open oneself to another to such an extent, that one allows him or herself to be transformed and changed by the other. This openness to the world – or “presence” – can only take place when I am fully there with another in my body ("in" is not the right word because it perpetuates the mind/body split... perhaps it is better to say: “when I am there totally, body/mind”).

So yes, I do think that we live in dangerous times and that technology allows us to become more and more abstracted from our bodies. As we retreat more and more into our private concerns, we lose the possibility for true encounters with “otherness?” Performance art therefore, has the great obligation of waking people up to the inter-subjective experience. Phelan says it well:

Performance remains a compelling art because it contains the possibility of both the actor and the spectator becoming transformed during the event’s unfolding. People can often have significant and meaningful experiences of spectatorship watching film or streaming video. But these experiences are less interesting to me because the spectator’s response cannot alter the pre-recorded or the remote performance, and in this fundamental sense, these representations are indifferent to the response of the other. Interactivity holds more promise, but thus far most of the technology delimits in advance the kinds of interaction possible between audience members and performers.

Rather then bemoan the death of theatre or the tragic plight of our modern world, I think we need to take a different mindset. The world needs art now more than ever because art is all about that mysterious thing we call "presence." An artist must fight for presence. He or she must sacrifice their life for presence. The vocation of an artist thus becomes something like a missionary. We strive for authentic human interaction by opening ourselves to transformation. In so doing, our lives will also transform others.