Preview of 'Performance Con: Take-One' at The Church

On Tuesday, March 5, at 6 p.m. The Church in Sag Harbor presents a preview of “Performance Con: Take One” with choreographer Tess Dworman and poet Mel Elberg

Dworman creates movement-based work using the tools of improvisation. Elberg is a poet working in video, and frequently collaborates with artists of all mediums. These days, Dworman is intrigued by the inherently performative nature of conventions, like Comic Con or Santa Con — environments where people of mutual interests in niche cultures come together to play, imagine and perform for each other or together.

It’s a paradigm that speaks to the dynamics of performance at its most basic level, questioning the roles of viewer, performer, and context: the relationships between the spectator and the spectacle. Elberg is interested in word-maps, the spontaneous legibility of poetry, and how writing constraints can lend themselves to performative scores.

Dworman and Elberg are coming to The Church to explore and make new performance work that considers notions of theater, performative relations, etymology and improvisation. Theatrical monologues, dialogues, improvisational scores, translation and profound naivete will drive the collaborators’ process as they explore a range of intimacies and relations in the culture of live performance.

Tickets for the performance are $10 (free for members) at thechurchsagharbor.org. The Church is at 48 Madison Street in Sag Harbor.