OF FINGER

By Rachel Lois

I have been invited by Megan and Phil of Tertulia to present my work at Spike Island in association with Arnolfini on April 10.

I will be presenting OF FINGER- a talk from recent scores, readings and live performances that presses on embodied acts of (w)reading and writing, finger(ing) texts and pointing to pointing at things. I will bring a selection of recent publications with me to Spike Island for participants to read and buy, including a special (travelling) edition of (W)reading Performance Writing : A Guide (Live Art Development Agency). I hope to see some of you there. Thanks.

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Tertulia’ is a Spanish word ordinarily applied to social gatherings with literary, artistic or bohemian overtones.  Tertulia is supported by Arnolfini and  Spike Island.  

Rachel Lois Clapham produces writing on and as performance as part of UK collaboration Open Dialogues and curates radical writing with the Arts Council partnership In a word…. Her own practice points..., punctuates movement and presses on physical gestures as text.  Work includes  Re- (PSL Gallery, Norwich Arts Centre and John Latham Archive), WORK TRY HARD (Kaleid Editions) and WRITING the SPACE (Wild Pansy Press).   In 2012 she is performing and publishing with The Other Room,  Lemonmelon, Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, VerySmallKitchen  and Open Dialogues. 

Image c- Re- (Unfixed) Rachel Lois Clapham and Emma Cocker 2010. 

Inside Performance Volume 24 no 2. 2011

By Rachel Lois

My column for this issue of Dance Theatre Journal features the latest manifestation of the score How is Art Writing? ‘How is Art Writing?’ was originally performed in 2009 by Mary Paterson for the launch of RITE at PSL Leeds as part of In a word.  It was made in proximity to (1) a green pepper on Rachel Lois’s kitchen table at the time of writing and (2) Rachel Lois and Alex Eisenberg’s text ‘? MARK’ for RITE, a text that presses on the particular space created by questions, including impossible questions.

How is Art Writing?

OR

Impossible questions that open up a definite but speculative space for saying something about  Art Writing

How is Performance Writing? has been re-made in 2011 for the particular context and form of Dance Theatre Journal.

First remove Art and insert PERFORMANCE.  Then break the score up into pink units via pink French index or Fiche cards.  Gradually condense, diagram and re-arrange the units over a period of days (in between doing lots of other things). Pay particular attention to the grid aspect, what is on the BACKSIDE of the cards, printing mistakes, folded corners and punctuation. Note handwriting. Spread the resulting composition across the whole magazine to create a sense of fragmentation and pace. Note the see-through nature of the gridded cards when holding one page in one hand.

READ.

Inside Performance is a serialised writing project developed by Rachel Lois Clapham for Dance Theatre Journal. Taking the form of a regular newspaper or magazine column Inside Performance is a personal journey into the practice of writing from or as performance from Rachel Lois’ position as a writer and Co-Director of Open Dialogues. The column features Rachel Lois' own writing, as well as conversations, commissions, page works and texts from other artists.

Dance Theatre Journal is the UK's leading magazine for dance and live art. Published four times a year, Dance Theatre Journal contains reviews, features, interviews and in-depth discussions by leading dance writers and artists, as well as talented new writers. It also includes up-to-date listings of dance performances and workshops throughout the UK.

Previous columns feature here:

Volume 23 no. 2 

Volume23 no. 4 

Volume 24 No1 

Volume 24.No3 

Writing AVANT GARDE PERFORMANCE OR

By Rachel Lois

My text entitled Writing AVANT GARDE PERFORMANCE OR has just been published in Before or Since, a special 2012 edition of Soanyway. Before or Since contains international commissions responding to the notion of Avant Garde and work of US writer Richard Kostelanetz, and includes an interview between publisher Michael Butterworth and Richard Kostelanetz.

Writing AVANT GARDE PERFORMANCE OR focuses on Kostelanetz's On Innovative Performance(s); a fascinating thirty year collection of typed notes-cards from the burgeoning 1960-1980 New York performance art scene. Writing AVANT GARDE PERFORMANCE OR introduces Kostelanetz as chief chronicler and presses on the diacritical impact of his writing in relation to performance and his chronicling modus operandi of smallness, keeping close to the ground and being present as writer. Not to mention his typing fetish.

Design is scanned and sent by Rachel Lois Clapham with assistance from Stephenpperry.

On Innovative Performance(s) : Three Decades of Recollections on Alternative Theater Richard Kostelanetz, Hardback by McFarland & Company 1994

Rachel Lois Clapham produces writing on and as performance as part of UK collaboration Open Dialogues and curates radical writing with the Arts Council partnership In a word…. Her own practice points..., punctuates movement and presses on physical gestures as text. Work includes Re- (PSL Gallery, Norwich Arts Centre and John Latham Archive), WORK TRY HARD (Kaleid Editions), (W)reading Performance Writing : A Guide (Live Art Development Agency) and WRITING the SPACE (Wild Pansy Press).  In 2012 she is publishing with The Other Room, Lemonmelon, Knives, Forks and Spoons Press and VerySmallKitchen opendialogues.com @rachellois1

So anyway is a magazine project by Derek Horton and Lisa Stansbie. There’s a thousand sides to everything – not just heroes and villains. So anyway…so anyway…so anyway…’Soanyway’ ought to be one word. Like a place or a river…Soanyway river

Before or Since Soanyway contributors include David Berridge, Rachel Lois Clapham, Robert Clarke, Jax Deluca, Emma Dexter, Alex Dipple, Henry Gwiazda, Derek Horton, Seekers of Lice, Christina Mitrentse, Neil Needleman, Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa, Aymee Smith, Lynne Williams, Paul Wright.