Say the Word and MOVE

Abstract

Say the Word and MOVE considers labour in relation to the collaborative process that led to the making of MOVE, a performance emerging from the AHRC Creative Research project led by Terry O'Connor at Roehampton University, where O'Connor is Creative Fellow. MOVE, a piece made with Wendy Houstoun and Joe Kelleher is part of the Say the Word project wherein O'Connor uses single words sent by fellow artists to instigate the making of new collaborative performances. The word ‘move’, sent by Houstoun, continued an ongoing artistic conversation between Houstoun and O'Connor around the place of movement in performance and performance lineage. MOVE was performed by Houstoun and O'Connor, with contribution from Kelleher, at Roehampton University in May 2011: “In 1982 or thereabouts, I helped set up a student society to bring performing artists to the University of Exeter. Mary Faulkerston, Lol Coxhill, Forkbeard Fantasy and Anthony Howell were amongst them. Anthony Howell and Ting, Theatre of Mistakes performed a piece called Table Moves, in which, as I remember, he re-arranged furniture through strict geometric rotations carrying buckets of water over the resultant stepping stones. A fight over the piece broke out in the car park. My boyfriend got punched for putting the piece on. In thinking about this word MOVE, I've been wondering if the heated formal questions in the air that night in Exeter, can be addressed again, now, how our engagement with movement has evolved. And also, I suppose, whether certain fundamental questions can and must be asked over and again: Why Move? Move How? Move What? Where? for How Long? Why watch?”