Contact

Jim Allen’s three-part performance Contact was the first fully fledged work of ‘performance art’ realised by Allen. For Contact – as the title implies – Allen’s concerns were with the spaces surrounding people, the ‘invisible bubble’, and the sensory input and reaction used to navigate that space.

Contact is performed in three parts or acts, beginning with Computer Dance, followed by Parangole Capes and culminating in Body Articulation/Imprint. The parts all involve four to eight performers – with equal divisions of male and female – and the set and props are altered for each part. Alongside the artist, the audience experienced firsthand an investigation into human boundaries and the body’s relationship with technology. Through the phasing of the performance Allen offers a liberation from form and constrictive matter, with the end act, Body Articulation/Imprint, comprising a free play of body and fluid material.

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