Performing Collaboration in Solo Performance

Book excerpt: The book provides an investigation grounded in creative writing and practice-as-research methodology and explores the issues of authorship and collaborative labour in contemporary performance. This investigation is set in the context of a world more and more characterized by fragmentation, displacement and virtual communication and relationships. It addresses and playfully engages with the following questions: what is a collaborative body? Can a sole performer carry out a collaborative practice ? Can we stand in for others? What forms of “coming-together” might take place when distance remains between those who perform and those who spectate? The book contains the full-length version of the score from A Duet Without You, an original performance piece created between 2013 and 2015 by Chloé Déchery in collaboration with a range of artistic collaborators working inter- and cross-disciplinary, including Karen Christopher, Pedro Iñes, Simone Kenyon, Marty Langthorne, Tom Parkinson, Michael Pinchbeck and Deborah Pearson. Alongside the playtext, the book entails a collection of essays written by independent writers, artists and academics and dedicated to the politics of collaboration, ranging from performative responses and co-authored articles to in-depth theoretical essays. Primary readership will be those teaching, researching or studying in theatre and performance studies, visual arts, fine arts, art history, creative writing, poetry, philosophy or French literature. Will also be of interest to art school students and those with an interest in theatre.