Almost imperceptible rhythms and stuff like that

Abstract

Although spectators are seated in a traditional auditorium facing the performers of the production Until the Moment When God is Destroyed by the Extreme Exercise of Beauty (AQD), by Portuguese choreographer Vera Mantero, what is asked from them does not follow the conventions of Western theatre according to which the stage is the place for action and the spectator a passive beholder. AQD performs a critique both of action as something to be seen and of the voyeuristic and passive role it prescribes to the spectator: there will scarcely be any action to be seen on stage. Instead, the bodies of AQD carry out a chorus of activities , choreography of words displaying their sounding materiality in playful rhythmic patterns. This performative construction invites the audience to immerse itself in a cadence of sounds, challenging it to engage with the performance from an aural and, I will argue, an affective angle. AQD summons the audience to a particular kind of engagement with the performers on stage, an engagement that equates an exchange of affect with a practice of listening, rather than a production of effects. I will be claiming that this shift - from effects to affect - is a distinctive feature of contemporary performance that gestures towards a mode of intersubjectivity in the theatre by which the performance lends itself to the affective impact of the audience.