playful performance

This is an introduction I was asked to make for the performance Beginning, Middle, End by Andrea Bozic, Julia Willms, Madalina Dan and Michael Pinchbeck. In November 2008 Michael asked me as a dramaturge for his part of a performance: End. End was only to be one third of the whole performance and while reading the proposal that was send to Springdance I wondered how I could ever be a dramaturge for only this part…

After last year’s Dialogue (this years Europe in Motion) Springdance commissioned for a collaboration by three former participants from three different countries to make a performance for this year’s festival.
Andrea, Madalina and Michael decided to propose a performance, which would both allow collaboration and autonomy. The title of this performance, Beginning, Middle, End, refers both to the structure and concept of the work and to the structure of the working process.

The working process of six weeks was preceded by virtual contact in which the idea was worked out. There were three periods with actual contact: 4 days in March (beginning), 4 days in April (middle) and 4 days in this week (end). In these week they were showing each other what they have been working on and figuring out how these three parts fit together to form one performance. The remaining time each maker worked on his or her own part. But they kept looking to each other’s parts, via skype and live. This looking played an important part in the process.
The three parts were allocated alphabetically: Andrea Bozic asked her long time collaborator Julia Willms to work together to make Beginning, Madalina Dan worked on Middle and Michael Pinchbeck worked on End.

So this performance started out of 3 words, both as form and content: beginning, middle and end. The question is what it means to have such a structure for both the making process and the performance you’ll see tonight. Next to collaboration and autonomy this structure also provided content. What is beginning? What is ending? What is it like to be in the middle? And how do a beginning, a middle and an end relate and interact?

In the end this last question is perhaps the question I was thinking of as a problem in the beginning while reading the proposal. Now I would rather see it as a challenging idea to work from rather then a question that needs to be answered. I would like to end my introduction with the following quote, which can be seen as a starting point for this collaboration:

Every moment has a beginning, middle and end, then dialogue will have meaning.
(http://www.abwag.com/beginning_middle_end.htm)

I wish you a pleasant performance.