ghent BE 2012
ghent BE 2012
rewriting distance
day one
June 11, 2012
Guy begins and goes to a wooden cover for the windows here …
it is shaped like this …
He peers through a small hole in it …
then writes something down, then goes back to where he was standing in front of the door,
He continues to make sound with this piece of wood. It becomes a musical
instrument, as it wobbles and then it becomes something he is able to pick up
and put on his back …
I am watching and he looks like a turtle; eventually I enter and talk with him under the shell of wood;
he puts it down; I am writing and here I am getting lost …
as I am writing Guy is speaking about his pet turtle named Jerome;
I am underneathsomething at this point;
the next thing I remember is seeing Koen standing against the white wall;
he is still and then,
Koen is talking about cannibalism;
he is now against the wood shaped like this ….
it is on the floor and he is moving like an insect;
I am stepping around him and then we have a conversation
about what he would like to be served with,
curry sauce, béchamel sauce,
rice, potatoes, …
he was at some point inscribing on the wood with his foot;
an invisible/visible writing system;
he now begins to write at the table
and his arm is moving and he is not looking at what he is writing,
over and over again he writes the same thing,
I go to the fallen wood shaped like this …
and pick it up and
it continues to make sounds,
Guy, I now remember,
was talking about carrying things on his head ;
he is moving things, and I remember writing down the phrase he spoke out loud
“between a pillar and a person”; this in reference to
speaking about navigating in a large crowd while carrying
things on his head.
we stop
Guy called an end
as soon as he saw me put the piece of wood shaped like this
against the wall
but now … when I think it is over …
there was the part where I walked into the rain,
and slipped coming back in and then it became
a small song about falling …
I am reminded now of a woman I saw fall this morning,
she hit the ground on her cheek.
This was either before of after the bit where I was holding the curtain
and talking about the constantly changing skies of Belgium.
(2)another round of rewriting ….
Koen begins pawing the floor with his foot …
it builds gradually
something about the first thing we see being simple enough and long enough to imprint and affect/effect everything else that follows (simple and strong)
then he charges the wall and jumps up onto
a heater with a small ledge …
and immediately becomes a painting,
my imagination comes alive
with galleries and galleries
and paintings and paintings
he makes some small sounds,
oh so small but clearly shaped and strangely comforting
… singingpaintings, how fantastic….
then he finds his way to the table
he manages to balance on it,
“what a strong little table”,
he begins to write on his knees on the table with his back to us …
like a man praying and writing
and everything is precarious and balancing
and then he continues
and Guy joins him,
slowly getting up from the chair he is witnessing from,
beginning a strange dance in front of me
as I sit in the chair he has just left,
as Guy joins Koen,
he touches Koen’s back and makes semi circles
around him … he is leaping and playing some kind of game always
with his one hand connected to Koen’s back
eventually they are both on the table,
Koen is standing and reaching straight up …
“what a strong little table”
I think again to myself,
when they leave the table, Koen steps down
and spirals off and Guy begins to write and I
go to a very specific place against the wall,
and lay down
like this …
Guy writes
Lin moves and sounds,
I am a musical painting
a water bottle is thrown out to the space
and
I am reaching for it and find it behind me without looking
eventually I balance on it and think
“what a strong little water bottle”
then I dismantle things …
there is talk about ritual, and placement and I am
in the middle of re-arranging a ritual,
Guy and I talk about the Cuisine of Cannibalism
and then he ends of against the wall as a painting,
his mouth is open,
the water bottle gets thrown …
this time by me,
Guy and Koen finish create a dance of proximity and history …
an elegance of humour and pathos in real time painting
as the table is a paper … and Koen dances with a bouncing pen
while Guy is underneath the pen and table …
thoughts after two sessions of rewriting distance first day ( on the train ride home)
hole
whole
door on the floor
Koen watching against a white wall
Koen singing/sounding/silent against the white wall after jumping up …
a painting, a man, suspended
Guy with a big piece of pressed board on his back, he looks like a turtle
Koen hitting the table and making the pen bounce and dance
Guy underneath the white sheet of paper on the ground and Koen writing on a naked table
questions of fix and flow from Koen … is there a theme? What does theme mean to Koen?
rhythm, rewriting, returning, repeating, remembering … all with fix and flow and from the lengths of time of each one, a song appears, musical notes are the length of the flow, their stops and starts are timing and changes in pitch.
a man writes on his knees on a table
Koen says “ I felt like a was being sucked under the table”
precarious, this word, this feeling
“what a strong little table”
something about trying too hard, finding flow in physicality, no meaning but moving …
howisdancinglikedrawinglikewriting
day two
June 12, 2012
Lin suggests beginning with Miranda Tufnell’s exploration of the room.
This means we will all scan the room, going towards 3 areas that
pull our attention …
when we have completed this task we then take the two other people
on a little tour of the places we found, describing them and how they were
evocative to us; describing our discoveries to each other.
Each person does this.
Then we write about one of the areas, and after the writing, we read our writing to
each other.
Lin’s writing
how something falls, inadvertently
into a shape
that makes sense
… staring at shoes, socks, a sweater
as they wrap around each other into a
swirling shell … keeping the world out
while inviting a closer look in;
so as to hear,
the memory of sea …
an adidas shell,
of blue socks and navy sweater wrapping
from the inside out, with a red stripe for line and
decoration …
leaving their shape indelible on everything
you touch and escape,
an endless spiral journey …
how many shoes, socks, sweaters
have we left, forgotten or found?
(3)another round of rewriting ….
It begins
Koen turns lights on
Lin turns lights off
Shadows inspire moving and the paper and the wall become a canvas
where
I am painted moving between chair, wall, and table
as
light
casting shadow
shapes
my
thought.
suddenly Koen gets up and
begins shortly there after
to draw my hand,
my real hand
against the paper as
it spillsfromthetable
and
casting
casting
casting …
he goes to the corner,
and I am dancing an imprint of
my forearm through the air,
as I remember it being drawn on paper.
( this creates a dance … a continual flow … the image winds its way through
my imaging body … like I am placing my body where it is telling me to go … it is
a very tangible spatial patterning)
eventually this swirls into a dance of breathing and imprinting
my arm becoming a wing, it drives
me off to the audience and I watch.
Koen is sitting at the table
he finds my glasses and a pen and
another pen and begins to move the pens
and his body … he looks like
a painter from a century that could be the past, the present, or the future …
he draws circles,
Guy is putting on and off his sweater;
he comes up behind Koen and draws on his back,
and Koen begins to speak a song and the speaking somehow
seems connected to the painting Guy is drawing
on Koen’s back,
a song comes finally and Koen sings to the table
his mouth and hands close to its surface,
Guy tries to climb his mountain wall … he puts back on or off
his sweater, I am not sure which,
then he is looking at me and scratching the floor …
he goes to the table and I put on the two sweaters …
next thing I remember I am at the table with two pens
drawing circles
and Koen says he has made so many
circles in this studio …
ThousandsofCircles,
and
Guy has done a number of odd dances to a song …
Koen and I make circles that turn into a line
as we try and find balance
in a room that is
a bit crooked …
we sing the song and keep
balancing and finally
Koen carries the balancing me to underneath the painting
where it finishes with a song …
Koen lying underneatthepainting.
Images from the day
how much doing Miranda’s exploration effects/affects the practice
the term “caressing the table” appears as part of our vocabulary
sweaters are prominent in all that takes place … they are lost and found continually
Koen scanning his body underneath what he has discovered from his initial writing is a painting … it is a skylight on the ceiling that has collected dirt and the lines have
formed an image that looks like a body lying down
sound is very prevalent
beetle on his back dancing … this is Guy
“bodyasanafterthought” from Guy’s writing
this country is saturated
it is a water world
colours are made deeper through moisture
the sun comes through the darkest of colours
giving them a shining hue
(the smell of air filled with water after the rain)
day three
Thursday June 14, 2012
(4)another round of rewriting ….
thoughts between
arriving only to balance
briefly
on the strong little table
then there is
a drum
a bouncing pen
and a man with a table on his back
we ride like passengers
occasionally
we push into the crevices of song
la la la la
lalalala …la la
he speaks out loud,
reading a newspaper without end
something about shadows
as he looks over to see something
like a question
did he really die?
the answer is the story
of the man
who designed a hat to look like a table,
somewhere to gather your thoughts
and dance like a beetle …
a balancing act
leaving an artifact
…a handmade object, a table underneath a wooden window,
it remains characteristic of his memory as it was moving …
a fort, a shell, a skin
it remains a testament to exactly what is escaped from …
it has the speed of life in its arrangement.
a scroll of paper is a spiralling dress
that goes faster and faster
as it fashions itself
over and over and over again
and catches the eye
of the man who makes the pen dance
and the tall man
who balances objects
all the betweens that step towards constantly missing
the ground and staying in the air
suspending into never knowing exactly where
the foot will fall … the
wings of each ankle carry us forever into
backwards
forwards
sideways
the momentum of tumbling
the crescendo of falling
all of us listening to the crevices
of this gravity song …
music, an afterthought.
After thoughts
all the 80’s songs that are appearing
Iggy Pop
The Passenger
Sting
Message in a bottle
Rock and Roll Suicide
Koen led the warm up today and it really affected and enhanced the physical aspect of the practice
Koen also gave a physical lead to the work that was
“try not to know where to stay with your body, or with yourself.”
Koen describes a movement Lin does with her shoulder as the “catchofawing”
(5)another round of rewriting ….
he begins
by getting a scroll
he begins
to walk along it
… he is
unravelling it
towards me
with his footfall,
… when he arrives
I begin
to tell the story of
my Danish grandmother,
who loved to watch wrestling on the television,
she swore and cheered for her favourite players
much to the astonishment of my father,
… I begin
to unravel the fact
that I am wearing
her sweater,
it was a gift
from my mother.
It’s a blue and rather plain sweater
missing a button,
but still
I do love this sweater.
So why did I inadvertently leave
it in a cab last night,
lost, then found
because he persevered,
just like you did,
when I hear you speak of travelling from Derby to Darwin
on a dirt road
with your brother, you were covered in mud,
swimming with alligators and drinking
with drunken Aussies who were calling you a tourist …
but you asked for a beer anyway
and the next day they helped you
clean the car …
I can hear your voice …
as you begin telling the story
I listen,
nestled into the crook of your foot.
day four
June 15, 2012
(6)another round of rewriting ….
so beginning
with a man
who is giving life,
he is pumping the heart
he is resuscitating
going to the end
I am dancing
because he is singing
a song from China
the chair is empty
and there have been stories
both funny and sad
massage techniques both
strange and wonderful
bring completely unexpected
events,
stories from the beach
and
how strong the currents of water
flooding my eyes right now,
traan … the word for tear in Flemish
looking out the window to the rain,
the waves of water cycle
through and
resuscitate this soul.
the catch of a wing in a shoulder blade
the softness of voice as it whispers
the sensation of shadow as memory …
the hand,
the hand,
the hand,
the heart
the heart
the heart
the hand to the heart in efforts to bring back life,
watering the body and
saving the soul,
hands that release small birds into the sky
centuries of rain
cleansing
cleansing
cleansing
resuscitating
reinventing
rewriting
remembering
memory as lifeblood
running through vein,
dancing inside shadows
dreaming and
singing towards
the vision of rhythm,
each of us,
a moving river,
eternal.
(7)another round of rewriting ….
I begin telling a story and writing in water with a pen … I never look up.
The water and the pen led me to talk about how unpredictable lines become when
they are combined with water …
things blur and expand … there is life to the movement of water and the pen tends to follow … these are how cities once where built … close to waterways, circular and winding around the arteries and branches of rivers and tributaries, leading to harbours and oceans …
streets for walking … footfall … winding … boulevards grand and with trees … small streets tiny and intimate …
rarely any straight roads….
and then
I am talking about the grid roads from Saskatchewan … the big sky and the straight roads … no water in sight … rarely any rivers to follow …
Koen comes in and tells the story of crashing his car … because he was changing a CD and following a curve … where were the grid roads then?
Guy enters later and tells a story about Venice, while his feet are in water …
Guy and Koen do a marvellous duet where they echo each other’s gestures, calling to each other through the body and imprinting this silent story to the air.
(1)
brothers,
side by side,
proximity gives history,
without a word,
slipping in and away from each other,
with the ease of animals,
you, Guy
are dancing with talking hands
Koen joins you and begins to
do as you do,
with his hands,
a waltz of gesture
becoming an orchestra and
a storm …
all hands on deck,
conducting into
words as they become motion,
a new weather system
brewing
fascinating to watch it
come over the
horizon …
disappearing
as quickly
as
it
arrived.
(2)
(an
unspoken
gift)
Guy speaks of Tobias
a painter,
a friend,
who saw an empty
wall,
and so created
a painting
to fill in
the blank …
and now
the painting
is
a passenger
travelling
you
home …
everywhere you go.
(3)
Koen is standing in a
rubble of paper,
it becomes a boat,
you are the man
standing at sea
in a sturdy little paper boat
Koen is rolling in the sea
the waves crash
together
in the creases and folds
of the paper.
your body goes
underneathitsmanysurfaces
swimming through
the constant
crashes,
the rise and fall
of ripping
and rolling.
(4)
Koen
goes towards the debris of paper
and
re-creates a motor bike
I help and
together
we are
momentary
mechanics.
(5)
Guy is telling a story
while wrapping and unwrapping paper …
and then
he walks on the scroll
of paper,
…it unravels as
he walks
towards me,
and ravels back
as he
returns to
where
he
began.
Afterthoughts
Lin’s suggestion
today we worked with sustaining …
- telling a complete story
- allowing the dance to finish without interruption
- writing the full paragraph or sentence
Guy suggested working for shorter periods
Cities with circles
cityofathousandcircles
Venice
Ghent
the grid roads of Saskatchewan
It has gone by too fast …
I wish for another day,
it always seems to go by this fast …
…when you love what you do
the day is never long enough…
…………….
In the hotel lobby of the Gent River Hotel
I find a book called
Water in Historic City Centres
Gent was founded at the location where the rivers Leie and Schelde meet.
‘water as a sign of faith in the city, literally and figuratively bringing the roots to the surface and this contributing to revitalizing the historical city centre”
How wonderful. Yesterday during our 3rd round I began by talking about how European cities seem connected to water flow, and circular roads seem more body friendly. I poured a glass of water on the paper and began to draw accordingly, allowing the ink to disperse in the water and lead my pen into a drawing.
Gent is called the Venice of the North … Guy disagrees saying Brugge is more likely the Venice of the North.
‘Let the fish swim again”
day five
June 16, 2012
(8)another round of rewriting ….
a great surprise
this rewritingdistance
becomes
a living sculpture …
paper and skin
line and voice
floor and sky
song and word
water and air
light and cloud
city and river
hand and table
writing us
into a big boat
together
we ride like
passengers,
navigating through
stories;
the
cityofathousandcircles
begins the
journey
as a man inscribes and turns
at the same time
the table and the paper
come with him
as his hand with the
pen,
becomes
an oar
in the sea
of the story
as the man
and the woman
together plunge into
the waters
walk straight into the sea
and resurface
as citizens of another time
inside
cityofathousandcircles
the man passes out pieces of paper
with words as clues,
and
another
sings to the crowds
while the woman goes into the sea
with a beautiful dress
and resurfaces
as Poseidon …
the writing
the returning
the recycling
is
through
papertimebody
left and right rivers
turning circles
creating furniture from water
and tables
into boats that float
the page
and capture the story
on the sly
like
water spiders
writing on the surface
likelightandpainters
Caravaggio
Rubens
Rembrandt
becoming a
disappearing gallery,
once only visitors,
blowing gentle winds
mouth
gives
storm and breath
to light on canvas…
inspiration/expiration
wordsimprintair
souffle, la vie …
c’est un histoire
continual .
afterthought
the graffiti of all the feet that have danced in this studio …
the circles
of dancing
left forever on the floor …
a graphic score
for reading.
Lin Snelling
Comments Off on ghent BE 2012
