An ongoing document of the cross art form performance improvisation research led by Tom Pritchard
This blog is one of several methods of documentation of the cross artform improvisation research 'On The Stage Of The Present.'
Begun late in 2010, the research is aimed at garnering understanding about how we might engage in instant collaboration, that is the process of collaborating across and within artistic languages in the instant of an improvised performance. It involves dancers, actors, muscians, visual artists, poets, architects...and is primarily interested with the application of improvisation to a performance context (rather than it's use as a tool of creation for 'set' works or as a tool for therapeutic ends). Led by Tom Pritchard but driven on by the individual research strands of each individual collaborator, this work hopes to offer insight and intrigue into questions such as:
+ How might different art forms find a communicative basis in the instant of spontaneous performance?
+ How might we find ways to make improvised performance accessible to a general public and specific and informed artist crowd?
+ How does each artform plug the gaps in another's fundamental limitations?
+ Where is the moment that a group or individual passes from research to performance?
+ What is the nature of live vs. document and how can we blur this separation?
+ What is required in terms of experience / preparation / knowledge in order to step onto stage with no score?
+ In what ways can improvisation be about more than just itself? Can it be used as a way to formulate comment and discussion about wider issues?
For more information on the research please read, watch and engage however you choose with the materials on this site. Equally contact me on thomas.j.pritchard@gmail.com or come to a performance or workshop as listed under 'upcoming performances / workshops' to experience the work first hand.
Glasgow based performer, improviser and dance maker the blogs are documents of two parts of my practice. On The Stage Of The Present is my cross art form performance improvisation research and To See Through A Child's Eyes are a series of stories, observations and textual fragments that reflect an aspect of my work with text as a performance element.
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