PERFORMANCE RESEARCH
VOL.26 ISSUE 7
ON AIR

Edited by Evelyn O'Malley,
Chloe Preedy
Published by Routledge
180 pages
ISSN 1352-8165
Softcover

Price: 95 ron


Air is a fundamental, life-sustaining aspect of existence. As a mediating element, air also shapes human modes of expression, including performance. Yet the air has not always received the attention it deserves, with its virtual omnipresence paradoxically making this mostly invisible element all too easy to forget. ‘On Air’ considers how performance might encourage more careful attunement to the air. Both breathing and environmental contexts of atmospheric exposure are central to its concerns, with pieces that consider diverse lived experiences and degrees of vulnerability to this element. Various contributors reflect on the specific implications of COVID-19 for understandings of and interactions with the air, while others discuss how performed responses and negotiations might foreground aerial embodiment. Above all, this issue invites reflection on what it might mean for us, as individuals and communities, to live -- and perform -- in the air.

Index:
Editorial: On Air
- EVELYN O'MALLEY AND CHLOE KATHLEEN PREEDY

Tribute to Mike Pearson: Non omnis moriar (Not all of me will die)
- RICHARD GOUGH AND MICHAEL SHANKS

Counter-attacking Pollution in Three Aerial Acts
- WOOD ROBERDEAU

Performing Shared Atmospheres: Museo Aero Solar
- SASHA ENGELMANN

To ‘Hold In-Common’ in the Midst of Clouds’ Drift
- CATERINA ALBANO

Love Is in the Air? Notes from Wales on air vapour as atmospheric affect
- FRANCES WILLIAMS

Breath^work [Artist pages]
- MEGHAN MOE BEITIKS AND KENYA (ROBINSON)

‘This is My Life’: Managing breath in Kirsty Young’s and Cumbernauld Theatre's LipSync (2019) and the COVID-19 pandemic
- MAGGIE INCHLEY

Performances of Exposure and Ethical Spectatorship in Hanna Cormick’s The Mermaid
- MEGAN JOHNSON

Airpocalypse: Cycling as a performative art methodology for investigating air pollution
- CLARE NATTRESS

Air Time [Artist pages]
- NIK WAKEFIELD AND SANDRA ZELLMER

Celestial Bodies in a Viscous Sky: Liquid Sky’s reshaping of aerial space using lasers
- KATE HOLMES

Conversations with an Invisible Partner
- NATALIE ROWLAND

Walking in Air
- EMMANUELLE WAECKERLÉ AND WILL MONTGOMERY

Addressable Volume
- EDITH KOLLATH

Choreographing Breath and Air in Object Performances
- S. R. MAY

On Air and in Breath: Atmospheric ethics of exposure
- VERONICA JIMENEZ BORJA

Signposting the Anthropocene: Air care, poleotolerance and the queering of ecosystem services
- ALEXANDRA R. TOLAND, HARRIET RABE VON FROREICH AND BEATE KÖRNER

Becoming with Wheat: Photosynthesis-Respiration Collaborations [Artist pages]
- AMANDA COUCH

Collective Breath: A conversation between artist Neville Gabie and curator Jeni Walwin
- NEVILLE GABIE AND JENI WALWIN

Playing with Then and Now: The liveness of breath
- ISABEL STOWELL-KAPLAN

From an Atmospheric Point of View: Gustav Metzger in the context of the air war
- GABRIELLA DARIS

Breathing Air into the Archive: Preserving Otobong Nkanga’s performance art
- LOTTE BODE AND TIMMY DE LAET

On Processing the Texts in The Air Journey
-LEENA ROUHIAINEN