Echoes is a series of practice as writing/writing as practice experiments that play within the intersections of performance and philosophy. The first instalment of the series, “Performing Animal”, was originally presented in draft form at the inaugural Performance Philosophy conference (Surrey, 2013), and the project situates itself within this emerging field as a response to the invitation to develop a dialogic approach to trace encounters between the two fields (Cull and Lagaay 2014, Valerie 2016, Street Alliot, Pauker 2017).
 
The series is titled in homage to post-Jungian archetypal psychologist Patricia Berry’s articulation of the mythological figure of Echo, the blabbermouth nymph who tries to trick Hera and is then cursed by her in her seminal essay “Echo’s Passion” (Echo’s Subtle Body, 1982, Texas: Spring, 113-126). While Hera, “a ruling mode of consciousness” who “serves to make things established,” (115) condemns Echo to an existence of secondariness, mere repetition with no possibility for originality, she unwittingly creates a threat to her own fundamentalism. For Echo is now the trickster who destabilises established structures by “showing the hollowness within.” (116)

Echoes interprets Berry’s analysis as a provocation, one directed specifically to the actor who, like Echo, is also a mere repeater. The craft of the performer is employed as a subversive, fertile, disorienting method of playfully shifting between paradigms and mediums and investigating resonances with an ear tuned to imperfections, transformations, and multiplying possibilities rather than building cohesive grand narratives or formulas. Each writing/practice pairing addresses a key topic (‘The Animal’ or ‘Repetition’) to expose philosophical positions implicitly embodied in methodologies and theories of acting, and/or the (at times ridiculous) performativity of contemporary and recent Continental philosophy, while proposing echoing as a method of tuning into and listening in for the resonance between texts, practices, and audio-visual and written documents.

• Saner, Göze. 2018. An Actor’s Attempt at Sisyphus’ Stone: Memory, Performance, and Archetype. In: Katja Hilevaara and Emily Orley, eds. Creative Critic: Writing as/about Practice. Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 9781138674837 [Book Section]
• Saner, Göze. 2018. Attempts. [Film/Video]
• Saner, Göze; Zaroulia, Marilena and Clements, Rachel. 2014. Performing Animal: A Dialogue. Backpages, Contemporary Theatre Review, 24(4), [Article]
• Saner, Göze and Robinson, Scott. 2014. Jacques et Jerzy. [Film/Video]

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/25449