Introduction: Redefining Visceral Performance
Josephine Machon · Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks · 2009
Since the late twentieth century a performance style has emerged which exploits diverse artistic languages to establish an ‘experiential’ audience event via the recreation of visceral experience. 1 Impossible to define as a genre due to the fluidity of forms explored, this performance style places emphasis on the human body as a primary force of signification and utilizes the ever-increasing possibilities in design and technology. In addition to this it has reclaimed the verbal as a visceral act and embraced the written word, a factor previously denied in certain performance practice where the language of physicality has been prioritized. Consequently, this style enables practitioners and audience members alike to tap into pre-linguistic communication processes and engages with an awareness of ‘the primordial’ via such sensually stimulated perception. Merged with this is the potential to engender a certain feeling of transcendence, of comprehending ideas, experiences and concepts in a unique way. As a result, this style produces a response of disturbance that can be simultaneously challenging and exhilarating, at once unsettling and pleasurable. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.