Danielle Son photographs Sepideh Shariati - Annotation
Son, Danielle. Sepideh Shariati. 2015. Toronto Laboratory Theatre at the Robert Gill Theatre, Toronto. Web. https://www.torontolab.org/islvisuals
Danielle Son photographs Sepideh Shariati as she sits in a chair for a performance of In Sundry Languages. The woman is still as she sits and there is a projection of her mouth on a screen above her. Considering the production of In Sundry Languages I observed in July 2017, I gather that she is delivering a monologue where the camera focuses on specific regions of her body while she speaks.
It’s interesting to note that it is not immediately clear where the camera comes from, but looking very carefully at the edge of the stage, I see a black
outline of what I assume to be a head and a slim stem that disappears into the dark of the stage that I presume is the camera from the angle the video on stage shows. In comparison to the 2017 production, there is a contrast where there was an obvious handling of a camera recorder, often times by the performers themselves, making the human contact between the actors noticed. It’s difficult to gather an analysis because I don’t know what their conditions of production were for this particular staging and how that influenced the performance text, and in turn influenced the photograph.
The photograph makes me wonder how of the use of digital media in the performance text has varied from performance to performance. Speaking with director Art Babayantas (2017), it’s interesting to see how he uses media technology in the production to invoke a sense of reinterpretation in the audience with what is being presented on the screen. In 2015 and 2017, is the focus on the digital element, the interaction between the physical bodies of the actors, or the exchange between these two worlds of digital and material, which is a useful question to explore in my research because I’m focusing on the way media technology can be used as a language.
Other Works Referenced
Babayantas, Art. “DRM398 In Sundry Languages Interview” 9 July 2017. Seminar.
