Is the indeterminate space between written and performed an appropriate place for a show?
So much contemporary art combines practices of writing and performing together, so why does so little position itself as drama? Does this avoidance point to a failure of tradition, community or documentation? What do the answers to this question say about the optics of collaborative practice, about power?
New Dramatics was conceived as a publication to fill the gap between these questions: a publication series distributing and reflecting on contemporary performance texts. New Dramatics: an editorial meeting was a performance staged in 2016 at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal. There the editorial committee reread and reconsidered plays by Nadia Ross & George Acheson and Frank Cox-O’Connell & Evan Webber, imagining the printed page as a paradoxically surprising incubator for liveness.
New Dramatics, Public Recordings upcoming print project continues its development through rehearsal–with public events, and a print publication launching in 2019.
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Co-created and performed by Frank Cox-O’Connell, Ame Henderson, Evan Webber and Jacob Wren. Design: Jeremy McCormick. Produced by Public Recordings. Photos: Ame Henderson.
