The art of the performance director involves among the many tasks a certain position, where in the attention is on composition. This is where the orchestration of the elements involved is formed into a 'dispositif', that is the complex of structures that directs the process to the final performance. The impact of digital technologies has revealed new characteristics of the performance material, and has thus promoted the emergence of a radically new environment for the art of the performance director.

New narrative ground. The change of phenomenal characteristics of the environment and material of performance has brought renewed focus on the underlying processes on which the forming of the performance language is based. This would be the dynamic semiotic process shaping our consciousness and driving the creation of realities and identities. There is emerging a form of narrative playing with parallel realities constructed out of our inner virtuality, which is distinct different from the meta-fictional construction of layering multiple fictionalisations of the inner reality.

From meta-fiction to hyper-reality. The drastic ontological change for performance composition promotes an equal radical change in the dramaturgical spectre of realities at hand in the building of the narrative of the performance experience. From having a base in the performer presence as the factual condition, from which layers of fictional events could be generated into a complex of meta-fictional strategies Ð there is emerging a performance artform having base in the communication between simultaneous equally real but differently mediated realities, which through form-linguistic strategies generate a complex of hyper-reality montage within the audience.

Throughout the presentation there will be shown a selection of video documentation from resent laboratory and performance work by directors from UK, Norway, Japan, France and Denmark—providing glimpses into the art of the performance director and the evolving compositional strategies of form-linguistic montage.



Author Bio
Kjell Yngve Petersen is a Performer and Stage Director producing opera, dance, performance events and installations. He is artistic director in the institution Boxiganga. He has been trained in the tradition of advanced formal body theatre. He works on creating, researching and writing on augmented and hyper-reality performances and installations, with special interest in real-time generative situations in which the audience takes part in performing the artwork. A selection of his work can bee seen at www.boxiganga.dk . Currently he is a Ph.D. candidate at the Planetary Collegium, University of Plymouth. kjell@boxiganga.dk