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Dramaturgies of the Left-Behind: Mobility and Stickiness in The Disappearances Project

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2016

Abstract

In the verbatim theatre performance The Disappearances Project (2011–13), Australian company Version 1.0 explored the state of unresolved loss felt by those left behind by missing persons. Rather than relying on verbatim testimony to simply ‘tell’ the stories of the left-behind, directors Yana Taylor and David Williams sought to immerse the audience in an indeterminate world, characterized by pathologies of endless searching and waiting, and a sense of paralysing loss. In this article, I argue that the performance hinged on dramaturgical practices of stillness, slowed movement and friction to produce the disturbing sense of ‘sticky’ indeterminacy characteristic of the experience of the left-behind. To develop this interpretation, I turn to the post-disciplinary field of mobility studies, which highlights the movement (or otherwise) of people, objects, information and capital, as well as embodied experience and sensory and kinesthetic environments. This provides ways to identify and analyse mobility-as-dramaturgy as well as the co-production of affective atmospheres within Disappearances and the wider field of performance.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2016 

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References

NOTES

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6 Ibid., p. 79.

7 Ibid., p. 80. Emphasis in original.

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13 Ibid.

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16 Sheller, ‘Mobility’, p. 3.

17 Lyn Gardner, ‘Agony without Answers in Brighton after Loved Ones Disappear: The Disappearances Project Brighton Dome Studio 4/5’, review of The Disappearances Project, dir. David Williams and Yana Taylor, The Guardian, 16 May 2013, p. 22.

18 The Disappearances Project, devised by Version 1.0, dir. Jana Taylor and David Williams, perf. Irving Gregory and Jana Taylor, Version 1.0, Brisbane, 4 July 2011.

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20 Taylor and Williams, The Disappearances Project.

21 Bissell and Fuller, ‘Stillness Unbound’, p. 3. Emphasis in original.

22 Ibid., p. 12.

23 Ibid., p. 3.

24 Midgelow, Vida, ‘Reworking the Ballet: Stillness and Queerness in Swan Lake, 4 Acts ’, in Carter, Alexandra and O'Shea, Janet, eds., The Routledge Dance Studies Reader, 2nd edn (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar, pp. 47–57, here p. 51.

25 Ibid., p. 109.

26 Ibid.

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28 Ibid.

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31 Taylor and Williams, The Disappearances Project.

32 Ibid.

33 Farrell, p. 36.

34 Ibid.

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37 Ibid., pp. 251–65.

38 Ibid., p. 3.

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40 Anderson, Ben, ‘Affective Atmospheres’, Emotion, Space and Society, 2 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, pp. 77–81, here p. 80.

41 Ibid.

42 Taylor and Williams, The Disappearances Project.