ABSTRACT
Lilo Nein imagines (2009) a dialogue between a text and a performance, taking place after the text sees itself being performed. What text mistakes for self-recognition at first is eventually revealed to be a way of existing side by side, a constant state of self-discovery. Even though there is a text, the ontological nature of performance can only be observed in the moment of enactment, not before or after it. Similarly, for a performer to find a ‘me statement’ within a given role would indicate their ability to come up with a definition that is beyond the limits of a conventional understanding of ‘me’; one that is integrated with an ‘it statement’. So, both ‘me’ and ‘the other’ depend on finding their presence within one another in order to co-exist in a performance. This chapter suggests using the rhetoric of performance studies in order to approach the relationship ‘me’ has with ‘the other’ as a form of territorialisation.
