Spaces of Agency: exploring text bodyworld hybrids

Abstract

How might ‘agency’ be practiced in the meeting of performer and text? What are the ethical concerns of how these two materials might merge? The analysis draws on the author’s research at the Norwegian Theatre Academy with students of diverse backgrounds. It traces notions of agency from the institutional context to the specifics of studio exercises: acknowledging these as interconnecting systems which affect each other. It proposes a trans-aesthetic approach which foregrounds agency as primary mode of learning. The work contributes to the field by developing an analytical strategy of overlay and simultaneity: exploring how different methods may co-exist. It considers text and body as heterogeneous hybrids: bodies as texts and texts as bodies, drawing on Camilleri’s research on hybridity and the bodyworld, Barad’s intra-action, Crenshaw’s intersectionality, Meizel’s multivocality, Cahill’s hesitation and Russel’s glitch feminism, among others. It grounds the practical exploration in existing approaches such as Stanislavksi and Viewpoints, discussing how these methods expand to meet 2024; and aiming to speak to students and teachers whose work spans a range of methodological backgrounds. In relation to text and body as merged hybrids, this article explores examples such as: exploding the text, code shifting, aesthetic hybridity, glitching - all as examples of heterogeneous sonic world-making.