Abstract
I consider that ‘Hybridity’ in performance is definable as, variously, the blurring and combining of traditional theatre, dance, music, art and ‘everyday life’ into single works; the trading of differences between ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultural registers; the merging together of seemingly inconsistent notions of time, space and identity, and the destabilization of audience identification and affective standpoints. Anne Imhof’s hybridized performance is a fusion of media: painting, music and architecture, also known for its particular vocabulary of movement, its multi-layeredness, and incorporation of technology. There is an emphasis on the sensual and playful nature of the body, which, by experimental and technological means, is extended, reconfigured and yet identifiable as a locus of infinite variability. My paper will address theoretical sources before moving on to how these have manifested and been reciprocally reinterpreted by a variety of approaches in Imhof’s realisation of her work Sex performed in the Tate Modern ‘Tanks’ in London 2019.
Highlights
In a press interview at Tate Modern,1 Anne Imhof appeared far more accessible and affable than her public persona and her oeuvre suggest, in both of which an apparently strong aggressive, dark, disruptive force is presented
Originally from Frankfurt, she is based in the capital with her partner, Eliza Douglas, and others of her ensemble of pale, lean, androgynous performers, variously involved in different performances at different times
A common reaction to Imhof’s performances, and especially Sex, is that it did not feel like almost four hours of performance, this is because our subjective sense of duration appears to have accelerated whilst ‘objective’ time has continued normally
Summary
In a press interview at Tate Modern,1 Anne Imhof appeared far more accessible and affable than her public persona and her oeuvre suggest, in both of which an apparently strong aggressive, dark, disruptive force is presented. Hybridity and Experimental Aesthetics in the Performances of Anne Imhof.
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