Flesh and Text
Flesh and Text (Book)
Devising Performance by Bodies in Flight
A critical analysis of UK performance company Bodies in Flight’s work and collaborative methodology, including archival images, text extracts, reflections by collaborators, arts professionals, performance scholars, providing a context for small-scale performance making and insights into devising methods and key questions.120 b&w, 14 col. illus.
Upcoming launch events
10 May 2025 - Arnolfini, Bristol, 16:00 - 17:30
Edition
BODIES IN FLIGHT make performance where flesh utters and words move, challenging and re-energizing the relationship between audiences and performers, and audiences and place.
Emerging from rigorous interdisciplinary and collaborative methods, often with new technologies in cutting-edge venues, we insist on the buzz of ideas, on philosophy and poetry, using words and images, movement and stillness, voices and bodies, through which they aim to move audiences emotionally and spiritually. Organized in a highly visual design, this volume is both a history and a workbook with selections of scripts and archival material from 30 years of making devised theatre and performance in the UK and internationally, plus texts by collaborators, arts professionals and scholars exploring the company’s collaborative working method, contextualizing it in the wider performance ecology and culture.
Intended as an inspiration to emerging artists, the volume covers key questions for any maker of contemporary performance: the relationship of choreography and spoken word, the use of new technologies and multi-media, the role of original music and soundscapes, the differences between work presented in a theatre or gallery or sited in non-theatrical places, the persistence of theatre as an art-form in an increasingly digital culture.
ABOUT BODIES IN FLIGHT
SIMON JONES
MARKING THE TIMES: EXPERIENCING BODIES IN FLIGHT
FOREWORD BY ANDREW QUICK
UNCONCEALING THIS MAKER’S VOICE
SARA GIDDENS
1989-1995: THE FIRST SERIES: PERFORMANCE AS ENERGY, IDEAS AND PROVOCATION
DEADPLAY (1989)
PLAYING DEAD … BECOMING PROFESSIONAL
RACHEL FEUCHTWANG
EXHIBIT (1990)
CONTROLLED CHAOS
BARNABY POWER
LOVE IS NATURAL AND REAL BUT NOT FOR YOU MY LOVE (1990)
MY (OTHER) OTHER COLLABORATOR: PHILOSOPHY ALONGSIDE PRACTICE
SIMON JONES
iwannabewolfman (1991-92)
WORKING ALONGSIDE
SARA GIDDENS
ROUGH (1992-93)
FROM FAN-BOY TO PROGRAMMER – MEMORIES OF A RELATIONSHIP WITH BODIES IN FLIGHT
RICHARD DUFTY
AS IF FOR THE FIRST TIME
GRAEME ROSE
SPEAKING IN TEXTS: WRITING BEYOND MEANING
SIMON JONES
BEAUTIFUL LOSERS (1994)
HEARING BODIES IN FLIGHT
DARREN BOURNE
LITTLUNS WAKE (1995)
1996-2009: THE SECOND SERIES: PERFORMANCE AS (NON-)COLLABORATION ACROSS MEDIA
DO THE WILD THING! (1996)
THE MAGNIFICENT MINUTIAE
SARA GIDDENS
CONSTANTS (1998)
SET-UP AND SITUATION – DRAMATURGY AS TRANSFORMATION
SIMON JONES
DELIVERUS (1999-2000)
A DIALOGUE AT THE GLOBE THEATRE (LONDON)
POLLY FRAME in conversation with SIMON JONES
DIALOGUES & DUETS
JOSEPHINE MACHON
DOUBLE HAPPINESS (2000)
BEAUTIFUL LOSERS RE-WORKED
KAYLENE TAN
FLESH & TEXT, a document (2001)
SKINWORKS (2002-3)
BEING IN-BETWEEN: COLLABORATION AS NON-COLLABORATION
SIMON JONES
WHO BY FIRE (2004-5)
WHO BY FIRE: VERY SLOW DECAY
SLEEPDOGS: TANUJA AMARASURIYA and TIM X ATACK in conversation
TRIPTYCH (2005)
THE TRANSMEDIATED IMAGE
TONY JUDGE
THE SECRECY OF SAINTS (2006)
MODEL LOVE (2008-11)
RENDERING VISIBLE
PAUL GEARY
FINDING SUSPENSION
SARA GIDDENS
PERFORMANCE/ PHOTOGRAPHY/ PHOTGRAPHY/ PERFORMANCE [AND ON/ AND ON]
EDWARD DIMSDALE
HYMN (2009)
2009-PRESENT: THE THIRD SERIES: OPENING OUT TOWARDS CO-CREATING THE PORTFOLIO WORK
DREAM→WORK/ DREAM→WALK (2009-16)
GYMNAST (2011-13)
A PLACE THAT IS INTELLIGENT, A LITTLE BIT PUNK EVEN … BUT ALWAYS HUMAN
SUZANNAH BEDFORD
MAYFEST AND MAYK: FROM FESTIVAL TO CO-CREATION
MATTHEW AUSTIN in conversation with SIMON JONES
DO THE WILD THING! REDUX (2012)
STILL MOVING: MOVING STILL (2012-18)
DEVELOPING A PORTFOLIO
SARA GIDDENS
LIFE CLASS (2019-22)
MAKING AND BREAKING, FAILING AND FAKING
MORVEN MACBETH
THE DARE OF OTHER VOICES – FROM VERBATIM TO CO-CREATION
SIMON JONES
UNBOX ME! (2023)
AFTERWORD
PAUL RUSS
POSTSCRIPT
SIMON JONES
INDEX
