ABSTRACT
The body in the doorway speaks, and the things of the theatre – words, bodies, light, audience, space and place – coalesce around a door. The speech is of things that exist and things that do not; people are told of a state of non-being, of darkness and absence, by a physical being that is manifestly present, shrouded in bright light. Like the door, the performer’s corporeal presence – in its movement and then, as he lies down to sleep, perhaps to die, in his stasis – also outlines the absence of those who have just left. Doors and bodies swing, or pivot, upon a continuum of material presence and material absence. Artists and architects have long been drawn to deserts, particularly the south-western deserts of the USA, to investigate and reflect on practices of attending to and living in a particular environment, whether for temporary or more permanent habitation.
