Bring Yourself To The Table (2020)

An Invitation

To you,

Thank you for being here. We would like to invite you to perform with us.

The score we are working with this evening is: ‘Bring yourself to the table’

Feel free to interpret the score in respect of this table, this location, and these other participants.

Feel free to join in, or to observe. The performance will end at 7.35.

Feel free to come and go, or stay for as long as you like.

There is no right or wrong way of doing the score.

Thank you.

Sara Spies and I were invited to participate in a post-show discussion at the Festival of Belonging, held at the Central Library in Manchester, as part of a showing of a performance by artist, Avital Raz. Avital’s performance, My Jerusalem, focused on her experience of growing up in West Jerusalem during the 1980s. Sara and I were interested in working with the political themes inherent in Avital’s work by using a score we developed in Cape Town as part of our residency in the city in 2017. We asked whether we could include a short performance at the opening of the event. Avital and the organisers were very supportive of this and the ideas behind the work. The score, ‘bring yourself to the table’, is an embodied meditation on questions around who has the ability and privilege to participate in diplomatic solutions to conflict: there are people who will not sit at the table, or who cannot. Who is heard? Who can contribute? Who is present? Who is not?

We changed the score to invite participation from audiences attending the event and a third member was added to the performance, Christian Berger. We performed prior to Avital’s show from 6.45-7.35pm on March 11th 2020.