This exposition presents and explores all the creative process related to the performance Espelho meu, premiered in March 2017, in Porto, Portugal. From its assumptions and creative contextualization, we deepen our reflection and explore a possible outcome materialized in this work. It's the materialization of a creative thought, a creative process, into the artistic gesture of the performer. We believe that the creation of new performances is the only effective way to develop the contemporary performative scene. New performances that raise questions and multiple layers of understanding promoting new visions of the world and new possibilities. In this paper, we will briefly discuss the role of improvisation in the process of creating a vocal gesture that externalizes an inner thought, the role of the body and the energy of the performance, the non-imposed but important interaction with the audience, the relevance of the text as semantical and sound object, the choice of the concept mirror and its symbolical impact, the cross paths between artistic practice and technology and the artistic exploration of the performance after its physical existence in time, consolidated in the performative resonance as a creative tool to stretch time and to provocate the ephemerality of performance.

THE MIRROR AS ELEMENT

The mirror element is central in Espelho meu, distorting a linear time and space.

Foucault (1984) says, in Dits et écrits, and elaborating on the relations between utopia and heterotopia, that:

[The] mirror is, above all, a utopia, since it is a place with no place. In the mirror I see myself, where I am not, in an unreal space […]. (p. 47)

According to the same author the mirror is also:

[...] a heterotopia, since the mirror really exists, and where it has, on the space I occupy a kind of opposite effect; it is from the mirror that I am absent from the place where I am [...]. (p. 47)

The mirror is a fascinating element starting from either the mirror as physical object or as a virtual mirror that exists only in a layer of reading a space and a time.

Espelho meu, departs from a site-specific approach and interacts, from its conception, with space and time (9 minutes of performative act, 9 columns at the top of the FBAUP entrance foyer, 4 slices of video projection, 4 columns at the bottom of the same foyer, a statue, a performer) from there to the deconstruction of a possible pre-signification.

This appropriation of space in the decision of the work macro-structure, as well as of its presentation, is another way explored to remove obstacles between public and performer, between space and event, allowing the interaction without being imposed and creating the ground for a meeting between performative exteriorization (an outside the performer) and emancipated reading (an outside the viewer).

The separation of stage and auditorium is something to be transcended. The precise aim of the performance is to abolish this exteriority in various ways: by placing the spectators on the stage and the performers in the auditorium; by abolishing the difference between the two by transferring the performance to other sites by identifying it with taking possession of the street, the town or life. (Rancière, 2009, p. 15)

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THE MIRROR AS ELEMENT