Rimmer-Piekarczyk, R., Kendall, L., 2024.

Agency And Awakening: Creative Connections Attributed To Reckless Sleepers' A String Section.

In this performative presentation, Kendall and Rimmer-Piekarczyk will explore, re-encounter and re-articulate collaborative lines of enquiry that have emerged from their practice-research as performers in the Reckless Sleepers' work A String Section (concept and direction Leen Dewilde): as a tightly scored performative experiment, the original improvised work engages the performers in a playful yet destructive relationship with wooden chairs and handsaws*.

Juxtaposing traditional academic presentation and scenic imagery inherent to Dewilde's work, the presenters will utilise the frame of the performative presentation to disseminate new insights into this practice. Specifically, Kendall will aim to reawaken and reveal knowledge embedded within the improvisatory work and herself, as an act of transmission, whilst Rimmer-Piekarczyk will explore the performer's sense of agency when improvising within the structural constraints of the score.

Since 2012 Kendall and Rimmer-Piekarczyk have gleefully inhabited A String Section, drawing upon their wealth of embodied and performative experience, amassing new knowledge: identifying and meeting these particular strands of enquiry aims to facilitate, an as yet hidden conduit of communication for them.

This presentation addresses concepts as articulated in the conference call out, including, practice as research; performance within/without/across institutions; improvisation; site-specific performance.