Synopsis

Thought/ Action:   The Straits of Time
Performance by Frank van de Ven and Peter Snow

Thought/Action is an ongoing series of performance research investigations into the relations between thought and action by Amsterdam based dancer and choreographer Frank van de Ven and Melbourne based performance maker and writer Peter Snow.

In Thought/ Action we investigate the intersections of speaking and moving as they are prompted by the relations between us, and between us and the environments in which we perform. To work in this way is to begin by attending in detail – to ourselves, to one another, to the world, and to the many shifting relations between these interlacing modes of experience. Embodiment for us is grounded in these emerging networks of intercorporeal relations.

In The Straits of Time we propose to look at how experiences of temporality and displacement interconnect with intensities of place and of belonging.

Thought/ Action has issued in many performances internationally over the past ten years - theatres in Brussels, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, an art gallery in Norway, and outdoor places in Alice Springs, Wilson’s Promontory, and the French countryside. In 2006 we filmed The City Library Thought/ Action Manual in the City Library in Melbourne. The work has also been written about in research publications.

Biography

Peter Snow is a theatre artist and Professor of Theatre Performance at Monash University. He has worked as a director, writer, performer and theatre-maker on more than 60 professional productions in Europe, Asia and Australia. Recent work includes creating and performing Guilt Frame with Tess de Quincey (Sydney Theatre Company 2008), performing as Yahweh in OT: Chronicles of the Old Testament (Malthouse 2007), and writing and directing a version of Ovid’s Metamorphoses  (Dresden 2006). He has written widely on theatre and performance. His research interests include philosophy of performance and methodologies of performance making.