Risking intimacy: Strategies of vulnerability in vertical city’s all good things and trace

Abstract

Vertical City (VC) is an interdisciplinary performance hub located in Calgary, Canada. In this essay Barton and Hansen use two recent VC performances-All Good Things and Trace-to explore the physical, emotional, and perceptual intimacy in micro performances that is generated through the interweaving of embodied, sensory-triggered personal memories (associated with specific sounds, odours, tastes, textures, etc.) and composed through rule-based principles during performance. With its most recent production, Trace (2014), VC is attempting to realise a fragile and intimate dramaturgy of embrace, one that is only possible in a context of mutual vulnerability of both the performers and the audience. In this essay Barton and Hansen offer a detailed articulation of these complex and evolving composition and performance processes.