PRACTICE & PIECES
Robert is an actor, but his performance practice can also be located in dance. He often works with the tool of improvisation and related strategies. He likes to integrate voicing and moving to create instantly composed pieces that have an air of hyper-theatricality. Robert is interested in the creation of poetic text in pieces that, although improvised, can be repeated and still be worthy of the status of improvisation but is also interested in how improvisation manifests in text-based performance and plays.
anthologyofamess
Since 2013, Anthologyofamess (antholǝjee-ofǝ-mehss) has been both a collective of five dancers – Mariana Camiloti, A de la Fe, Petra Söör, Manou Koreman and Robert Vesty – and a home for performance activities and events in various and fluid forms. They engage with processes rooted in understanding performance as a practice in and of itself, also always under interrogation and evolution. Anthologyofamess uses improvisation as a tool to blur distinctions between performer and maker while attending to questions of desire, care-taking, individualities and togetherness. Anthologyofamess is a project that could be seen both as a framework and as a looking glass zooming in on experience, transformation, patterns, performance-making and the present. An anthology, a collection of events that are continuously evolving with the word mess referring to the non-tamable nature of dance and performance. In other words, Anthologyofamess is a stable for living forms, people, performers, dancers, librarians…
The Container
The Container was an improvised duet. It was performed on Saturday 4th October, 2014 by Petra and Robert for Agony Art at Chisenhale Dance Space. Photos from the tech by Maria Andrews.
A Piece for Two (Lovers)
A Piece for Two (Lovers) was performed by A de la Fe & Robert Vesty for Dancing Economies, RHUL, 20 February 2015 – Boilerhouse in the session entitled Performances: Friendship and Love. This piece brings two real-life lovers, A and Rob, together to perform. A is a dance artist, and Rob, an actor. Both enter the theatre of a performance piece using the language of dance and/or word. Before the piece, each lover secretly recorded a performance score lasting exactly 15-minutes. Once on stage, they each handed the other an MP3 player with headphones. The audience then witness each lover encounter and perform the score. In that way, this one-off performance played with the strategy of improvisation.
Julyen Hamilton’s Workshop in Arlequi Images (by Patrick Beelaert)
These images are taken of dancers participating in Julyen Hamilton’s 10-day workshop (Improvisation and Technique) in Arlequi, Spain between 2013 & 2017 by photographer Patrick Beelaert.
