Live performance
/ Performance texts
Years: 2009 / 2013
Duration: Performance duration varies
About the work
Spotlight is a minimalistic performance, a monologue performed in a single spotlight. The monologue is based on a playful approach towards textual structure of a performance text – it is a list from 1 to 100, repeating individual words, building up to a sentence and unravelling to single words again, as if in a loop. The sentences and words describe the performance itself: the performer stands in a spotlight, whilst the rest of the room is dark.
Several versions of the performance have been made, one of them for the national radio broadcasting channel Yle 1. The short version of the performance lasts about seven minutes but can be looped several times in a row (as was done in the version performed in the Kiasma Contemporary Museum of Art).
A longer version of the performance was performed in the Fluxee performance art event in Turku 2011. This version had inserts of other textual material embedded in the performance, which on their behalf described other events. These inserts functioned as examples of the styles of performance writing and dramaturgical means. In later performances this text has been available for the audience in the performance venue.
Live performances
Esityskomposti, Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum (Helsinki), 2012, Supermarket Alternative Art Fair (Stockholm), Esitystaiteen markkinat – performance event at Zodiak, Cable Factory (Helsinki), 2012, Fluxee performance event (Turku)
Radio performance
Yle 1 Radio broadcasting channel, 1.2.2013
Publications
A version of the performance text has been published (in finnish) in Esitys -lehti 2/2011