Output details

Performances in cooperation with the Arts Council of Puerto Rico

Devised theatrical performances

This output is based on a relationship with the Arts Council of Puerto Rico, built over a number of years and based upon shared research interests between Templeton and Javier Cardona and Lydia Platón of the Theatre Department of the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan. The first project in this relationship was ‘Going with Coming’, work designed both to demonstrate existing concepts in practice and to incorporate context-specific improvisation responding differently to each audience and venue.

A second project, ‘Aguas Dulces, Aguas Saladas’, developed this work and addressed the following questions:

1. What is the impact, both environmental and economic, of the existence and conditions, of the estuary on the communities of the San Juan Bay?

2. How can this impact be expressed publicly in an artistic form?

3. How might this work engage community members imaginatively and productively?

4. What innovation in artistic form would be appropriate to this task, rather than simply illustrating the issues?

In April 2012 Templeton led performers, educators and environmentalists, in a twofold development process:

1. Investigation of content: the theatre company visited estuary communities, informally and in formal social centres and and asked community members to realte their dreams, particularly those involving water or their daily lives. Over 200 dreams were gathered.

2. Investigation of form: in parallel, Templeton led the theatre company in workshops in site-specific performance, in particular involving the audience as participants rather than spectators. Placing the audience in the dreamer’s position was the project’s most important finding as a method of bringing the experiences of the communities to the audience’s consciousness.