ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on the thinkers and others, in relation to 9 Beginnings, to explore how sonic concepts and sonic theatrical techniques help with understanding the documentation and archiving of performance in terms of possibility and potentiality. It considers how some of the constraints function, and addresses how a sonic sensibility helps sound out the vibrations between possible and impossible, potential and impotential, that are found in the work. 9 Beginnings is composed entirely of beginnings of other performances, all drawn from specific performance archives in the UK and USA. The institutional connection between the source material is attended by other, less predictable connections between the pieces, what dramaturge Matthew Goulish calls 'unexpected echoes that presented themselves. 9 Beginnings is a particularly valuable example for exploring sonic possibility, located as it is entirely in the set-up for other pieces— the period in a performance right before the point of no return, when everything could still go another way.
