My friend K. wrote about starting rehearsal work on a bunch of text material she's using in a new project, with words from different writers (me included). First work in the studio has simply been reading the texts aloud. I really like what she says below about this part of the process, and her articulation of the relationship between text and performer, very smart.
Of course as soon as I'm trying this – the main questions come up….One thing is – why have a body in space telling these stories? Why not leave them to be read – published, or on the net. This has got me into the area of 'what are these stories doing to me/you as I tell them?' – something about what happens to a body when it is taken over by the images it is reading. It's reminding me of stigmata – a story that takes over a body, or maybe a body that takes over a story, anyway, that the thing leaks into the body of the teller, and the listener too. That helps a bit necessitate the telling of them.