The Mirror Stage (performance)

At the opening the sixteen members of the audience are divided into two groups of eight; one group is taken into the theatre space to attend my performance-lecture on visibility and age (https://youtu.be/JDQUr1QAeaA), in which I move between academic discourse, reports of mediatised cosmetic practices, a piece of facial movement work and personal testimony about experiences of ageing. The second group members are each assigned a one-to-one performance; these intimate pieces (detailed below with links) take place in smaller rooms, nearby. After the one-to-ones and the performance lecture, the two groups swap over and these performances are played again. Then the whole audience comes to the main auditorium to view a sequence, in which only the hands of the performers are visible. At the end of the piece ‘Hands’, a poem by Liz Cashdan, is read and the masked group of performers beckon the audience to move into the main playing space where they view the final masked section of the piece. This includes the playful brightly costumed ‘masks’ presenting as both youthful and elderly. At one point some have a photograph of themselves as younger projected onto their masked faces. Finally, in a waltz sequence, masks are removed and the performers speak frankly about their appearance. This episodic suite of experiences attempts to unsettle the audience, never allowing anyone to relax into a comfortable (normative) relationship to the old performer in view. The performance sequence also means that at first the whole bodies, and then the faces of the performers are hidden from view for most of the piece.