Abstract
Perchei sei tu?, Lindsay Kemp’s dance-theatre adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet uses dance, recorded music and live commentary in place of Shakespeare’s text to refresh W.B. Worthen’s concept of “Shakespearean performativity” creating a civic event and an instance of inductive theatre. This discussion offers a close reading of this workshop production, and draws comparisons between Kemp’s use of a masterclass as prologue to the main action in Perchei sei tu? and a similar framing device used by choreographer Antonio Gades in Carlos Saura’s 1981 film Bodas de sangre. The discussion goes on to use Bogart and Landau’s Viewpoints as a framework within which to examine Kemp’s use of spatial relationship and repetition of gesture. The chapter closes with an analysis of Kemp’s production in the light of Peter Brook’s manifesto The Empty Space, arguing that Perchei sei tu? blurs a complex of boundaries, between preparation and performance, between locus and platea, between real and imagined Veronas.