Andrew Marcus Performance makes site specific, improvisational performance events in which performer, audience and site act as equal and inextricable elements.
In these events, performance is an art object through which artist and audience meet in shared awareness. This awareness, focused and contextualized by the containing site, Mr. Marcus terms the space of performance.
The space of performance, comprised of the mutual awareness of artist and audience within a situational context, implicitly carries the potential to transform the consciousness of all participants, artists and audiences. When the awareness shared between artist and audience is heightened to an unusual degree, the space of performance becomes sacred space.
For Mr. Marcus, sacred space is not religious space. The artist claims the term for the provenance of art, as religion does not exclusively own its qualities, attributes or attainment. Sacred space is the highest achievement possible for dance and performance art.
For sacred space to be attained in performance, artist, i.e., performer and/or choreographer and audience must be in dynamic relationship. This requires a level of conscious creative participation on the part of audience beyond that which is commonly experienced or expected in forms in which “entertainment” is the primary objective.
In traditional theater performance, audience is more or less passive and spatially separate from the performer who acts upon the audience from a stage. In Mr. Marcus’ work, the most fertile space to be traversed is the space between performer and audience. This space is entirely liminal, and its properties can only defined and actualized in the moment of live performance.