Production Manager: Heather Landon

Director of Production: Lee Milliken

Senior Head Technician: Sally Roberts

Head of Wardrobe: Ming Wong

Artistic Director: Matthew Jocelyn

Interim Managing Director and Executive Producer: Sherrie Johnson

The Gestural Score

While the gestural score in Declarations is spontaneously generated each night, we arrived at fifteen rules for what the gestures could and could not be. I would encourage directors to use these rules as a starting point for their own interpretation of the piece, but also to feel at liberty to dispense with some and discover others.

• Gestures should be a genuine attempt to communicate the essence of each declaration.

• Simple is best.

• No acting.

• Avoid dance-like movements.

• Avoid facial expressions.

• Reset to a neutral physicality when possible, facing outward toward audience.

• Sometimes you will speak the declaration first, and then perform the gesture. Other times, you will speak the declaration and perform the gesture at the same time. It will largely depend on how quickly the gesture occurs to you.

• For every five or so simple gestures (i.e., one motion of the arm or hand), you may have a slightly longer, multi-part gesture (perhaps one that moves you through the space).

• ‘Runs’ are encouraged. ‘Runs’ are sequences in which you flow seamlessly between one declaration/gesture and another, as if each one were building off the last.

• Very occasionally you can make a sound to accompany a declaration/gesture, but only if that sound spontaneously arises from the execution of the gesture.

• No imitations of butterflies or birds.

• No finger symbols (i.e., a gun, a peace sign, the middle finger, etc.)

• Avoid pointing at the thing you are referring to; embody it.

• A variety of movement and stillness is crucial.

• So is levity and play.

Declarations

A bare stage, stripped of masking.

1 enters.

She stands for a moment.

She then proceeds to make a series of declarations, each accompanied by a gesture. The gesture is meant to illustrate the image or idea contained within the declaration. The gestures are governed by the fifteen rules set out on pages 9–10.

The text is fixed, but the gestures are not: the performers must rediscover each gesture afresh, night after night. The difficulty – and humour – inherent in this nightly feat of improvisation should emerge but not distract.

1: This is the thing

This is not the thing

This is my mother

This is her eyelash

This is a flag

This is an empty promise

This is the speed of light

This is a chewed fingernail

This is a pocket with a hole in it

This is Saturn

This is political

This is the morning light

This is the morning light coming through the window

This is her body in the shower

This is the warm water falling

This is her dying breath

This is my heart in the morning

This is her laughter

This is her absence

This is the state of things to come

This is a dog

This is how I lie down

This is Ikea