“I felt like I ‘was’ actually there”
Resonance and affectivity between the performer and the audience in ‘Widow’s Mass on All Saints’ Eve’
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7577/ar.5461Keywords:
a/r/tography, resonance, affectivity, interactive musical story, HIV/AIDS, queer history, church and homosexuality, narrative analysisAbstract
This article is based on the meeting between the audience and me as a performer in my interactive musical story about an All Saints’ Eve mass that I helped organise at the gay nightclub in Oslo called The Black Widow in the early nineties, a time when the gay community was heavily affected by HIV/AIDS. Using an a/r/tographic approach, I explore the concepts of resonance and affectivity, and ask: How can my subjective narrative from 30 years ago create resonance and affectivity in other people today? Reflections from five different audience members, along with two video clips from the performance, serve as raw material for discussing the issue in relation to relevant theoretical perspectives. Terms such as presence, vulnerability, courage, and openness, both in myself as a performer and in relation to the audience, are discussed, along with the significance of my own story and background as a Christian and a gay person in understanding myself as an a/r/tographer. In the article, which has an essayistic form, I intimate the importance of openness, presence, and the willingness to be touched – both in myself and in the audience – in order to create these moments of resonance and affectivity between the audience and me as a performer.
Photo: Thomas Berbom
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