Staging the Image: Video in Contemporary Performance

Abstract

At a post-show Talkback at P.S. 122 in New York City’s East Village in February 2009, director Peter Born addressed the short video sequence that was used in Pent Up:A Revenge Dance, a show written and performed by his wife, Okwui Okpokwasili. He said, “A lot of theatre uses it, but I think, if you can express it another way, then why use video?” It’s a simple rhetorical question, one that betrays Born’s minimalist theory in terms of the medium. But the answers, exposed through a survey of video’s wider use in contemporary live performance, are actually quite deep and varied. In our technology-saturated visual environment, the question is not whether video will be used in performance (it will), or whether this is a trend that may pass (like ever-expanding online culture, it won’t), but rather, how savvy performers and directors can use moving images to create powerful, visually interesting, critical, or otherwise fresh and authentic works on stage. Several recent New York City performances shed light on the positively exploited potential of video in performance, while others serve to reveal common missteps and abuses of the ubiquitous medium.