I apologise for this article in advance. Anything labelled as "Vile's Rucksack" tends to be an exercise in throat clearing, and reading this can be the equivalent of clearing phlegm from a computer screen. Then again, if you are interested in my definition of Live Art, join me on my adventure.
I have frequently made the mistake of describing my interest in Live Art when trying to explain what I write about. Back when I taught Latin, people knew why my conversation had suddenly turned dull - dead language, the beauty of grammar, the importance of the past to appreciate the present. Unfortunately, the glazed expression Live Art elicits is not due to boredom, it's incomprehension. Live Art isn't in the glossary of popular culture.
This introduction is swiftly followed by my pitiful attempts to prove that Live Art is really exciting. Even allowing for the idiosyncrasy of my own tastes - I believe Pina Bausch is easily enjoyed, but my sister and mother, both ballet teachers, beg to differ - there is plenty in that Live Art bucket that is accessible and fun. Some of it probably does need a doctorate to be understood, but there's enough that even a relatively uneducated character like me can get.
Saying that Live Art is analogous to the descriptor "Queer" doesn't make for a lively conversation over the Christmas pudding, I discovered and although I'd argue that both categories exist to cover those things that don't simply fall into comfortable, popular definitions, making a connection between the two lends Live Art an association with sexuality that isn't necessary. At this point, I usually surrender and remember that most genres are pretty hopeless, anyway - illustrating my point with World Music, a term which sounds like what Sting plays when he isn't tuning his lute and ignores the differences of geography and social context, reducing high and low traditions, east and west and central, contemporary and ancient into a bland mush.
The first step is to ignore "art" - I am happy not to get into that definition just now, and save it for the later stages of a three day binge, when the alcohol trumps common sense. Next, I'll focus on "live," and insist that it means that the art has to have a duration and a location. That sounds close enough to "performance." I'm pleased, because Performance Art can be a synonym for Lve Art.
This leaves choreography, scripted theatre, improvisation, rock gigs and that stoned bloke on the podium at the nightclub in the category - all genres and happenings that don't need to have another label.
So, yes, I have a definition, but it is too vague to clarify much more than the actual phrase. Like saying that Saturday is the day between Friday and Sunday, it might suit a dictionary but ignores the emotional resonances, and the usage of the phrase in particular contexts. Back when I had a proper job, Saturday had associations that didn't come from "the last day of the week" or "named after a Roman God." A definition so simple and so neutral doesn't explain why I even care to define it.
I did have to do a course in linguistics once - before I became completely lost, I did hear that there is a difference between "prescriptive" study of language (how I taught grammar) and "description" (which observes usage). To give an example - ironically, one that really irks me - the word "performativity" ought (prescriptive) to be used to relate the manifestations of gender identity; it is (descriptive) used as a catchall to express the performance qualities or potential of certain subjects.
If I go more descriptive - and more subjective - I do associate Live Art with a certain set of performance activities. It tends to be personal, interested in the experimental, has a set of influences that include but are not limited to the avant-garde of the twentieth century, it blurs categories, enjoys a challenge and privileges the new and challenging. It sits outside easy definition, rubs shoulders with feminist, anti-capitalist and post-modern philosophies, holds a romantic ideal about the status of the market and can be absurd and sublime.
I am not sure this helps much at parties, so it is probably better if I fall back on my second profession at parties. Sure, I am a teacher... I teach young people how to appreciate Live Art.
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