For immediate release - March 16, 1998

Handke Salmagundi to Show on Reed Campus

Beginning Friday, April 24 through Sunday, April 26, the performance group Liminal will present the performance installation, Handke Salmagundi,at Reed College. This event is sponsored by Reed’s Division of Arts and Division of Language and Literature.

Handke Salmagundi is a site-responsive performance art installation where Peter Handke’s playwriting is taken out of common modes of theatrical context and is reorganized into a synchronic place and time. The installation will surround the spectator with visual, aural and corporeal sensations that move in and out of space.

Half theatre, half performance art, the production attempts to remove divisions between performer and spectator, while using selected words and actions of Peter Handke’s various early, middle, and late plays to frame the “drama” of the event. The result is a blend of techniques between two different periods in this century’s post avant-garde movement: first, the highly ritualized, self-reflexive, communal practices of performance from the late 60’s and 70’s; second, the hybridization of artistic mediums and resistant semiotic techniques characteristic of postmodern performance.

Much of the text and action for Handke Salmagundi was selected from the following Peter Handke Plays: Offending the Audience; Self Accusation; Calling For Help; My Foot, My Tutor, The Ride Across Lake Constance; and Voyage to the Sonorous Land.

Handke Salmagundi is free and open to the public. Performances will be held on Friday, April 24; Saturday, April 25 and Sunday, April 26. The installation will open each night at 8:00 p.m. and will close at 11:00 p.m. Spectators are encouraged to come and go as they desire.

For further information or directions please contact Bryan Markovitz at 228-7231.

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Handke Salmagundi (1998)

In February and April 1998, Liminal presented the performance installation Handke Salmagundi at Reed College. This event was co-sponsored by Reed’s Division of Arts and Division of Language and Literature in conjunction with a public forum that Liminal organized to address the state of contemporary art in Portland. Over 150 people attended the discussion, which included a panel of Portland notables from the contemporary arts scene.

Handke Salmagundi was a site-responsive performance installation that mixed text from Austrian playwright Peter Handke with original physical actions and shifting sound and light media. Actors performed in close proximity to the audience, while using the words and actions of Handke’s various early, middle, and late plays. The installation was a repeating hour-long event that consisted of several scenes performed simultaneously in synchronized time and space. Handke Salmagundi was the first performance that Liminal structured as a cyclical live exhibition within a 360-degree environment.

Much of the text and action for Handke Salmagundi was selected from the following Peter Handke Plays: Offending the Audience; Self Accusation; Calling For Help; My Foot, My Tutor; The Ride Across Lake Constance; and Voyage to the Sonorous Land.

Bryan Markovitz directed and designed. John Berendzen produced live sound and media. Trent Moore constructed the setting. Cast members included Amanda Boekelheide, Georgia Luce, Jeff Marchant, Trent Moore, Jennifer Olson and Rich Southwick.

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