Hilevaara, K. 2013. Lingering with performance: memory-writing as an act of remaking. Performing Documents Conference. Arnolfini. Bristol (original) (raw)

This paper considers the mode of re-performance in writing about performance. For the spectator-critic, remembering becomes the act of remaking and the page the site of this response. Memory-writing, then, foregrounds remembering as a creative process. In the spirit of the kind of re-performance which reaches out to the original as a site of inspiration - lingering with it, reeling from it - memory-writing positions the writer as inventor and imaginer. Memory-writing, instead of giving a kiss of life to the performance, invents it anew, stimulated by that elusive ‘thing’ that stays with the spectator-critic; the thing that touches, irritates, loiters. In this paper I will linger with my memory of a performance by artist and filmmaker Eija-Liisa Ahtila, The Annunciation (2011), with laughing out loud, alone, and experiment with how to put that into words.