Bookperformance is a term coined by Cy Mirol in 2011. Deliberately written as a single word, it articulates the entangled relation between book and performance while manifesting a distinctive worldview: holding life’s unfolding authorship. Practically, it is embodied as creative texts, improvised acts, and visuals and sounds created through resonance. Theoretically, it fosters co-creative acts to enhance understanding of human orientation and textual resonance, connecting individual and societal insights. It narrates a reader’s evolution into an author and showcases the transformation of a tree into a paper and a manuscript into a book, using narrative techniques and author-reader/audience interaction to encourage co-creation. Embodiment and enactment play a key role here, as the writer’s and reader’s bodies, identities, and multi-sensory experiences become interwoven into the text’s unfolding meaning. Rooted in the concept of “the absolute self” as love’s essence, it emphasizes “we are all one” through shared authority, love, and co-creation, focusing on diversity and transparency.This unity is not theoretical—it is felt, sensed, and embodied in collaborative artistic acts. These ideas are articulated in the 7 universal principles of the Bookperformance Manifest, stemming from Cy's MA research on reception theories and self-referential literary works as artistic performances. She is further developing Bookperformance as a practice-theory in her PhD research in Authorship Studies with a focus on what she calls "soundscapes of authorship" at UGent.
www.bookperformance.com