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Documenting Performance and Truth

i’m not interested in documenting
documenting is boring
documenting is recording facts
and facts are not particularly interesting

i often worry that photographing performance
is a violent act
even when i photograph my own work
i’m concerned
that there is some form of displacement

Muriel Maffre, theatre photography, theate photography, theatre documentation, performance studies, Stanford Performance Studies, performance documention, site specific dance, site specific theatre, san francisco theatre marin headlands performance, theater bay area, documenting performance

I often see photographers
use their cameras as weapons
machine gunning the performers
with the hopes that 1 of the 1000 images
captures the moment

this i find extremely violent

a point of view is interesting
feelings or impressions are fascinating

my approach
because i am not a photographer
that is
I view the camera as a tool
i use within a broader artistic practice…

to be clearer on this point
consider a novelist
one day they might write with a pencil
the next day
a typeriter
another day
a pen

as a typewriter is for the writer
the camera is for me
and just as the novelist knows his “s” key sometimes sticks
i know my 35mm lens overly vignettes
when wide open

it’s just a tool i use
as a means to express something
something i’m still struggling to understand
and with this tool
i capture images for myself
as if they were sketches
in a work journal

the only thing my photos document
are my own feelings
which is mostly what i see
when I look back at my own work

Sophocles, Nausicaa, site specific theatre, site responsive theater, theatre photography, theatre documentation, performance studies, Stanford Theatre, site specific dance, san francisco theatre, Stanford TAPS, Stanford repertory theater, theater bay area, documenting performance

i don’t rush in and out
it takes time for me to understand
to form feelings … attachments

… relationships …

not just with the people
but with the space/environment
we inhabit

when collaborating
i often have a general understanding
i’ve read the play
studied it in school
imagined it brought to life
but when i show up
i realize my preconceived ideas
which may be manifested or not
are my ideas
ones that i am pushing onto someone else’s work
preventing me from being present
taking me out of the moment before me

truth comes to me
little by little

i think
truth is temporal

truth can come suddenly too
moments like this only happen
when I know the collaborators
i’ve breathed with them over time
so that i see them
as if they were standing before me naked
and they in turn see me naked
with my vulnerabilities and insecurities
we see each other
with no judgment
only with our hearts

We Players, Ava Roy, William Shakespeare Macbeth, site integrated theatre, theater photography, theatre documentation, performance studies, Stanford Alumni, san francisco theatre, theater bay area, john hadden, documenting performance

when that happens
and i have been very fortunate
to work with people who make this very easy
the images somehow become
more than my personal sketches
capturing some semblance of a truth
in the performance

it’s a question of trust
to capture such moments

it’s the game of yes
where you open yourself up to another
as Joyce writes
in the last lines of Ulysses…
“…I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. “aJames Joyce, Ulysses, 1922 edition

it’s only then
i feel
that i see the truth

Documenting Performance and Truth

Notes

References[+]

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