This issue of Performance Magazine has been reproduced as part of Performance Magazine Online (2017) with the permission of the surviving Editors, Rob La Frenais and Gray Watson. Copyright remains with Performance Magazine and/or the original creators of the work. The project has been produced in association with the Live Art Development Agency. WHITE LIGHT 57 FILMERROAD LONDON SW6 TELEPHONE 01731 3291 Thea tre lighting design, control, equipment and hire Audio-Visual presentation, design and projec tion Equipment maintenan ce and refurbishing Installation, distribution systems, speed effects OUR PRICES ARE COMPETIT IVE - PLEASE RING US FOR A PRICE LIST OR QUOTE This issue of Performance Magazine has been reproduced as part of Performance Magazine Online (2017) with the permission of the surviving Editors, Rob La Frenais and Gray Watson. Copyright remains with Performance Magazine and/or the original creators of the work. The project has been produced in association with the Live Art Development Agency. November-December1981 The Performance Magazine PO Box 421 London NW1 ORF 01 485 7476 Editors Rob La Frenais Luke Dixon Lynn MacRitchie Design Editor Chloe Nevett Associate Editors Pete Shelton Carlyle Reedy ..... ... .. .... ....... .. ... .. .. ..... .. .. .. 5 Margurite McLaughlin Bruce Bayley Music Performance Art Platform/Rob La Frenais ... .. .. .. .... .. .. .. 6 Paul Burwell David lllic Acme 1976-81 /Jonathan Harvey . ..... ......... ..... ... ... .7 Contributors John Roberts Roger Ely State Performance/Lynn MacRitchie ..... .. ..... .. ..... ... .. ... .. 1o Phil Hyde Gill Clarke Miranda Tufnell/Gillian Clark .... .. .. .. .. .. ... .... .. .. .. .. 12 Diana Simmonds Andrea Hill Jonathan Borotsky/John Roberts ...... .. ... ... .. .. .. ..... .. .. 18 Liz Stolls Neil Hornick Guest Contributors Laurie Anderson/Rob La Frenais . .... .... .. ... .. .. ..... 15 Jonathan Harvey Carlyle Reedy New Anatomies, Touching Class , Alaistair McLennan , John Ashford Pick Grayson Sue Maclennan , Rabbit in a Trap, Spiral, Centre Ocean Stream . ..... .. 24 Christine Linley Cover photo of Laurie Anderson Actual 81: Paul Burwell, David lllic . ...... ... .... .. ... .. .. 21 by Chris Harris . Typesetting Windho rse Photosetters Action Space Mobile at Biddick Farm ..... .. .. .. ... .. .. 27 Printing Calverts North Star Press Ltd Publisher Rob La Frenais Hrant Alianek/Luke Dixon ... ... .. ... .... .. .. .. ... ... .. ...... 29 Copyright © 1981 The Performance Magazine ISSN No 0144 5901 Letter from Japan/ John Ashford . .. ....... .. .. ... ........ .... 30 This issue receives financial assistance Listings . ... .. ... .. .... .. ...... ....... .. .. .. ..... 35 from the Arts Council of Great Britain. ROYALCOURTTHEATREUPSTAIRS Sloane Square SW 1 730 2554 Evenings 8.30pm from 18 November (19 Nov 7pm) THAT'SNOT IT presents MOTHERSARMS written and directed by Natasha Morgan whose last show 'ROOM' played to full houses at the Theatre Upstairs in the summer . Using powerful images and an imaginative use of lights, tape and live music, MOTHERS ARMS deals with the many and varied pressures of motherhood. ROYALCOURT THEATRE 730 1745 r~Comfflg toth7.lt~eac;J:;1 'It is cabaret of a classical tum, with songs scored as much for funny faces as for instruments. It is equally a brilliant and modern, thoroughly updated kind of comedy that could well make the group's deserved fortune. ' Booking open for these two visually stunning productions This issue of Performance Magazine has been reproduced as part of Performance Magazine Online (2017) with the permission of the surviving Editors, Rob La Frenais and Gray Watson. Copyright remains with Performance Magazine and/or the original creators of the work. The project has been produced in association with the Live Art Development Agency. Opinion cians, who decided on their 'side of it' to become adaptable, creative, dynamic, and ANY/NOW to live very dangerously (examples: Laing, David Cooper, Timothy Leary). Text of the recent presentationby CARLYLE REEDY (PerformanceArt Platform,Midland Group Nottingham, Oct. 18) 'PERFORMANCE' / 'PERFORMANCE ART' : As. From Experience. Form/Strict­ made availableto PerformanceMagazine. ures or Definitions/seems to me/a limit, limiting the choices, a stiffening. How do I xperience I have in so-called 'perfor­ facets which when integrated to come unchoose them? In 1967 I began to un­ Emance' (I question) 'art' (question ) closer to human experiential reality in its choose/event poems/including poems to a has come about through narrative totality. Resistance rules the loss of total­ floor format/collaborations/Poems with­ ability/theatrical/curiosity about space/ ity of experience, life as a dynamic, separ­ out words/Image poems/Or: On stage with time. Perhaps. A first performance was a ates life (that swinging dynamo ) from art nothing to do for 4 hours . / Ageing. Inside a limited tap routine for a girl named Lillian (that staticized definition) and Art (the completely transpare nt framework. These who lived across the street, who at 6 years wide-open freedom!) from Psychology were my works. Then I invented a theatre was older than I, or else I was eight and (that old analytical truth serum ) and so of dream with written texts/verbal spon­ Lillian was taller, I can't remember. forth. Out of fear we as a human race taneous/voice over before voice over/nar­ Another performance was of Mary Martin commit ourselves to being blinkered, ration through action/Facets of multilayer­ routines, also imitating Imogene Coca, naming the same event several ways to fit ed eventstructure/ lOOse, mysterious, who was with Sid Caesar at the time; so into the limitation which a fear of dis­ inconclusions, conclusions at the time/ there are my biographical dates, so far. covery imposes. This is not why I ever Surreal/projected/2 dimensional/ or/ a Storytelling was performed with captive entered the arena of 'performance '. To me scenario in 3 dimensions, in which I would audiences of kids I was babysitting for. Performance is simply the recognition of function as performer, as myself, as I am uncertain as to where biography the interrelatability of possible continually reader, as author of. Now development of about Performance Art begins, whether emerging factors and let's hope that it does numbers of Women Characters is part of seeing how long I could stay shut in my remain as unreasoned out as possible, as my work, but I am playing with these, as room without getting bored qualifies. For unexpectedly social, and as unsemanti­ with ideas. I do not 'do' characters. Experi­ me, whether it is the biography of an artist, cized (a preshrunk garment , get your ment defines my history. In that I have artiste, iconoclast, poet, existentialist, or semanticized performance art now) as some 'qualification!' performer , or, as I suspect, it is simply possible. 'getting on with it,' the general area under PERFORMANCE'?'/ " ?'"ART'? The discussion is hopefully indistinct, enough Possibly I am/a direct descendant of the words in definition, composite, suggestive. to arouse curiosity, partially unexplored, disappearance act. With eventstructure Distribute their meaning over a 'broad possible, potential. .. research group . In a look. For new ways. area'? HA very funny. Over London, the Paragraph. I have thought of the Dada midlands, lower canada, all of Europe, Aus­ A phrase from Jeff Nuttall's 'Godless non-movement as a chucking out of les tralia, brazil, France, Venezuela, Tibet. A Ceremony': 'Maximum tension and ordures in order to acquire a breathing very bfg bottom to this. .. broad area to potency of relationship' sounds vital; I set space. To allow for Stockhausen in a circle, which some reference is made. Attempts in beside it: 'Motility/mobility of values/ (I listen to) or Paul Burwell ; for Cage language (called the most divisive med­ transitory experience of self-destruct/re­ games, for Yoko Ono; for playing the ium, see my Open Letter, c.f. John construct. Page Two. Volatile/Mobile/ clarinet in a bucket of water; for the dis­ Latham ) do reduce/demean the knowledge self-actualizing./ .according to: a very covery of a room's relationship to a content. A bucket of rubbish/on the tilt . ancient knowledge system: that of performer . Man carries half open box and plastic white curiosity. There are exciting not necessari­ Destructive art and radical therapy were bag down street. Schwitters is guiding a ly regulatable creepy crawly energies to be interlinked in the 60's. That post Cage blind person in the wrong direction . Marks discovered under every old stone on the period could be historically interesting to are too fast, fat/tree climbs, then falls. Golf path ./Stop. Parantheses: The People the new category under which our 'per­ tees. Disorientation/is a non-turning key Band/Not only music. Stop. Moreover, formance is now creeping . Art and psychi­ to ... to what? where-ever there is use of classical exam­ atry were allied thru their 'radicals ' and the Non-turning because it is not by will of ples/ objects shown to best advantage/I more radical and exemplary according to intellect, some annotated philosophy from question. I question 'best' and steadied on ancient traditions of genuine outrage were Cage, or an inheritance of written direct­ pictures of 'what art is' at every juncture/ the 'existential' psychiatrists . ions from Duchamp or Andre Salmon that question : at all times . I disagree with any somatic studies contemporary with/radical an incident of discovery occurs. /The statement that what