An exploration of intimate performative acts of confession in a secular culture: orality, physicality and site.

Confessional, 'one-to-one' solo performance has become a visible form of performance practice in recent years, taking its place in a culture where the personal has become increasingly commodified. In this context, it seems imperative to understand, as practitioners, what this form of confession might enable, particularly by way of experience and the potential for exchange, for the spectator.

Over the duration of three years, as an AHRC Creative Fellow, I am conducting a series of theoretically and culturally contextualised practical explorations which aim to understand what 'confession' in performance is and might be, what it does and might do. In particular I am interrogating the terms 'intimacy', 'risk', 'confession' and 'site', and the inter-relations between these in performance practice.

For this research project my focus is applied to the impact that secular and non-secular space has on intimate exchange between spectator and performer: what is the nature of that confessional exchange; what is the relationship between physical intimacy and intimate spoken revelations; and, how and whether 'the confession' can be reconceptualised for these times but still perform its function as a 'release' or 'relief'?

Over a period of six months I will conduct a series of (at least six) separate but related applied research experiments. These will take the form of one-to-one performances located in both secular and non-secular spaces (including a church, a church that has been converted into a theatre and a performance studio). In each space, different modes and variables of performance exchange will be utilised, including physical (e.g. hand-holding), oral (exchange of verbal information) and silence. The aim of these workshop performances is to determine: the extent to which physicality and orality are related; the impact of space on the willingness/desire/resistance to exchange information and the type of information exchanged; and, the types of confession that may be performed by the spectator.

The spectators will all be volunteer participants. Following the workshop performance each will be individually interviewed and asked to reflect on their experiences in the different spaces and different modes of intimate encounter. With the consent of the participant, each workshop performance will be video recorded.

The results of this applied research will be synthesised in the devising of a final public performance, open to all, which aims to engender the greatest degree of genuine exchange between performer and spectator in such a way that the spectator feels to some extent liberated by the end of the piece. This performance engages with many questions posed in my AHRC Creative Fellowship application, not least whether performance might potentially provide a secular equivalent to absolution.

Given the extent of solo, confessional practice in evidence in the UK and the USA, and the context in which this practice takes place (that of a mass-mediated confessional culture), the purpose of this project is to offer a timely practical interrogation of the confessional form, including the interrogation of my own practice. One part of this research, therefore, involves surveying existing work in order to produce a context for my own practice. In addition to the public dissemination of the work through the final performance, my research and critical reflection on it will also be made available to a variety of constituencies through post-show discussion.

The final two months of the project are dedicated to creating an oral presentation reflecting on research process and outcome (to be presented within the University context but open to the public) and the submission of a critically reflective article to a peer-reviewed journal (e.g. Studies in Theatre Production).