A staged dialogue

Paz Rojo and Christa Spatt met in various situations as artists and curator. They were hostess and guest to each other, sharing proximity in the theatre and sharing ideas about theatre in talks. They appreciate that, even if they do not know or fully understand each other. In ‘Manual for a Promising Machine’ they meet again and speak with each other and to a third one about what the sharing of time and space in theatre could imply.
Written and performed by Paz Rojo and Christa Spatt.

At the Anatomical Theatre Revisited Conference
Venue: University Theatre- Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16 Amsterdam
8th of April ‘05

‘The decision or destiny of this postcard is up to you’

We are all hostess of each other. This means that our situation in the world is, like in theatre, within a structure of reception and meeting. It also means that the relationship of ‘hostess’ occupies a relation of hospitality and not one of ignorance or hierarchy, masters or slaves. I want to rethink this term in a theatrical context where the meeting and reception between performer and especta-tor or audi-ence (to expect and to listen). I want to explore this meeting through the ideas behind the issue of hospitality: the ‘host’ and the ‘hostess’ (the audience and the performer; or the performer and the audience). My other interest is to explore the ethics implicit in this situation of hospitality. Ethics that have to do more with events and also with passion rather than action since it supports the idea, that the human experience is less the gathering of different initiatives based on essences or truths but based on responses to different invitations or requirements, which the world brings us forward often without our contentment or prior preparation. The experience of hospitality in this context is the learning process with what is always an-other and always, therefore waiting to be negotiated.

manual for a promising machine

Since 2004 Paz Rojo has been working on the series entitled ‘These theses’. These gestures can be presented in various venues and events. More than product oriented or participating in the industry of spectacle, These Theses function as productive machines which emerge out of different contexts and of different ways of creating a meeting. These Theses rehearse and re-labour-ate the space of performance upon which communication is challenged. Texts, letters, dialogues, postcards, presence…‘These Theses’ elaborate a ‘poetic autopsy’ of the act of performance itself.
This series are deeply influenced by performance theorists and philosophers such Peggy Phelan, Lucy Irigaray and Jacques Derrida.‘This is Love’ and ‘this is Hospitality’ are part of this series.