Robert Wilson:
Visual artist. Known for his use of light, his investigations into the structure of a simple movement, and the classical rigor of his scenic and furniture design. His work focuses on movement and lighting to create very visual performances. While I find that his work is very interesting to watch and look at I don’t think that I’m likely to use it within my own performance.
Presentation on Wilson’s work below:
Whoopi Goldberg:
I really liked Whoopi Goldberg’s performance style. The way she tells the story and discusses serious topics in a way that is also very funny is brilliant. She keeps the story flowing and even when she changes the subject it all links together. Unlike Swimming to Cambodia, the changes in topic are not sudden or dramatic rather the topics over lap and naturally flow together. She manages to grab the audiences attention with the way she tells the story, by changing the way in which she speaks the lines. The story goes from being funny to discussing a serious topic to going back to funny. The character Fontaine also changes up stereotypes. She is a drug addict but she also very clever and in the video below there are moments when the audience laugh at the idea of a clever drug addict. When this happens Goldberg improvises brilliantly and questions why the audience find this idea hard to believe.
I really liked the way in which Goldberg can discuss a serious topic in a manner that is funny and I feel like I want to try to use this idea within my own performance if possible. I feel like the way in Goldberg does add humour within a serious topic makes the serious parts stand out more. They have more effect. When Goldberg pauses and the audience have a less than a minute experience of silence, for example, makes you think about what Fontaine is actually saying. Another example is when Fontaine talks about the quote by Anne Frank and the idea that this child did, despite everything, thing that there was more good in people than bad, that moment does hit home. It makes you think and then Goldberg adds humour as to lighten the mood. I found Goldberg’s work the most engaging out of all the artist we’ve looked at so far.
Tim Miller:
Miller is a performance artist whose work explores his identity as a gay man. The thing I actually really liked about Miller’s work is that he uses his own story to talk about a bigger social issue. This is something I want to do with my own work. He has a very dramatic story telling style and he is also very physical in some of his pieces. He’s also political and talks about the issues that effect him and his community. Even though he is telling his own story, he is also telling the story of his community and I think that that is very effective and makes the performance much more interesting. It very much starts as his story but then evolves into a much bigger topic area as he introduces his community’s struggles into the story.