montréal QC 2012
montréal QC 2012
Circuit Est
Montreal, December 17-21st, 2012.
day one
we begin with Miranda’s exploration of finding places in the room, and
describing them to each other, and then finally choosing one of the places
to write about
I choose to write about the back corner of the studio … curtained off and used for storage.
….
behind the curtain;
there is
a mannequin and a hoola hoop, some
coloured balls, some yoga mats,
and then
a very old wall:
both my hands reach out and I place them on its surface;
it feels good
it feels old
it feels cold
it feels rough
it feels thick,
yet porous,
will it last forever ?
… and then I
notice the
unevenness of the architecture
in this corner,
a new wall, a less new wall , and a very
old wall; a meeting of edges
curve verses straight
old stone verses new brick
smooth verses rough
plaster verses mortar
steel verses wood
all these walls
with doors and windows
the outside comes in,
and the curtains
move and swing memory …
This room,
carrying details
of dancing and dancers.
This room a passageway,
time running backwards, forwards, through;
invisible and intoxicating,
all that has moved and keeps moving through here …
Echo chamber
afterthoughts of day one
sitting here … writing… solitary, yet still, with space,
writing with place is writing with …
there are places that move time,
there are places that reflect back
there are places that allow anonymity, recognition, and intimacy
the performance place is what kind of space?
…….
Catherine is dancing
Guy is writing
they reference each other through space
X …………………………………………………….. X
Catherine travels back and forth on a horizontal plane
she places her hands down on the paper at the table where Guy is writing
like she is placing down a specific shape of something, a box, a parcel,
it is invisible, and weightless, but with detail and placement …
She leaves it there and Guy considers it.
day two
Fulcrum (dictionary definition)
-one point at which a lever rests or is supported and on which it pivots
· a thing that plays an essential role in an activity, event, or situation.
fulcrum, a place for tipping and rotating,
a levering place for what goes up and what goes down,
again this room seems to tip away as I step in,
the writing table balancing my dance,
an endless moving and speaking,
a cocktail dance of bright shape and illusion,
an imagined martini glass triggers Guy’s memory of an artist
friend’s obsessions with funnels …
and so Guy and I make a funnel shape together with our hands …
Guy tells a funny story about aging …
“very popular theme in dance now”
He remembers being at a conference of young and old dancers …
the young ones could ask the old ones each one question …
Lia Haraki, a choreographer from Cyprus asks a stripper who has been in the business for a long time,
“what is your secret to staying young?”
The stripper answers immediately without a second thought,
“moisturize”
I laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh …
(moisture and aging, remember to do one, the other is inevitable)
…
My face is down on the desk,
the paper is on the floor
where Catherine is writing,
I have a desire to write the sound
of my voice into a page and
so I consider this, as
I mumble quietly,
Catherine continues to write,
and then out of nowhere and
in no particular order but sometime later
she lies down on the desk
in front of me,
her belly a beautiful curve,
a sensual slope,
my hand goes to it …
boy or girl
… she
…. he
it’s a secret
… its not known
…its life.
this time of year,
a race towards the shortest day,
this practice,
a conversation;
this leaving,
a party;
this moisturizer,
some good advice.
She places the paper and the pens …
on the desk, and in my hand …
I find them and began writing
a dreaming out loud at the table.
Echo … the 12th month of the year,
the accumulation of sounds,
all seasons have a song,
all details a pitch,
all memory a particular
pattern.
afterthoughts
Catherine said
“ feels like there is a lot more writing than just what is on the paper”
writing falling words …
catch …
catch
catch
catch
catch
We have established a method of working for the week …
which is …
we do a very long practice and then we write about it , and then
we read to each other what we have written,
and then we do another practice …
which is often shorter and more condensed.
day three
Michael comes to take photos.
the form completely changes today.
“What is it about changing the rules that is so satisfying”
Catherine.
Today is our third day together
and it seems we have broken through.
Our fulcrum has appeared
and we are able to tip and turn
this room any way we wish,
playful and restless,
the table gets thrown down
and the pencil from yesterday gets found.
The paper goes to the wall and the tape torn
from the floor helps the paper fly to the wall,
The paper falls down again and again,
it gets caught,
gravity is love
(she said this a long time ago)
oiseau … the word with five vowels and one consonant.
writing in the dark.
writing without glasses,
taking glasses on and off,
to see better?
to see worse?
how Catherine’s gesture
of bringing her two fingers to rub together,
helps a thought arrive,
invisible music.
she is approaching,
he is happy to find a pencil,
together they write on the wall
against/ the paper surface,
putting it up as it is falling down,
the heart of it caught as it is undone.
slowly, slowly, slowly
it is the slow approach to a thing
I understand the most …
( I wrote this down … along time ago … )
afterthoughts
a form is discovered …
more condensed
… we run to enter and exit,
we time this with another person’s exit or entrance,
this occurred in the doing …
we arranged it as we heard and felt it,
we patterned it from our surroundings,
we kept doing it,
it felt good,
leaving and coming
rushing in and out
back and forth
X ………………………………….. X
……….. X
X
X ………………………………X
…………………………… X
X
always a direct entering and exiting
a back and forth
the fulcrum in the room,
our feet,
running.
day four
(the day everything fell into and out of place)
sounds of alarm,
… brisure …
a breaking,
a waking,
a loudness
a way to make a mark,
marks are visible/invisible
marks are memories
marks are writing
marks are bones
marks are bodies
marks are explosions
marks are faith
marking is a generous activity
it seems the fulcrum levers
content and discontent
life and death
here and there
wishing and speaking
the word wishbone comes to mind
(I have one inside a tiny silk purse,
a gift from a friend
… I am saving it for when you are here)
a wanting, a longing
is a spirit a mark?
do we mark with our presence?
do we disappear and appear to make a mark? …
( I have always believed the word “ego”
means so many different things to so many
different people)
Tattoo: marks on skin,
she draws on his body
skin becomes paper, becomes surface, becomes place, becomes poem, becomes letter, becomes alphabet, becomes sound, becomes darkness,
becomes absent, becomes chaos, becomes confusion, becomes the way
you take my hand and warm it with rubbing …
with rubbing …
“aye, there’s the rub … “
we bring surfaces together to spark the spirit,
we are accidental, occidental, pre-historic, byzantine, roman, 20th century, flemish primitives, anglo,
québécois, norwegian, danish, ancestral ….
we are exploding with signs, with dates, with sounds, with pulsing and lifeblood,
deep red moving tattoo directing circulation,
everything is born of resistance
we push hard into a surface
and mark with desire
with délire
with delight
with demons
with death
with dynamite
with direction
bones spiral our truths for an eternity,
we are the marks we make
we move with them everyday
a dance becoming a walk, becoming a way, becoming a thought becoming
layers of layers of letters, of layers of layer of layer of layer of letter, of layer of layers of layers of letters…
as paper made by hand, it’s texture-having teeth, our bodies with bones
my body is an alphabet
my voice a musical funnel
my ancestors a pathway,
a direction for sound
this universe a huge bone
crystalline, porous, active and marking
bright and dark
alarming and silent
Tell me a story,
give me a word,
I will put my hand out to it,
rub it, polish it, and hide it in a drawer,
leave it on a page,
throw it into an ocean.
you/i/we/he/she/they
perhaps will discover it,
feel its shape and warmth,
throw it up in the air
catch it through a century.
write me a postcard
“wish you were here”
afterthoughts
Catherine says,
“we are written bodies ( instead of ) writing bodies”
Catherine has a question for our short practice at the end of the day
“Can we condense slow time: blurriness?”
day five
we come to the space,
we warm up,
Guy sets all the paper in the space from the whole week.
We set up the space, the table, chairs, decide where
the audience will be …
Michael comes at 10 am and together we look at the photos
from Wednesday.
we are then quiet in the space, doing small things, waiting for
the invited audience to arrive at 11 am.
We have invited,
Francine Gagné
Tedi Tafel
Jérémi
Chiara Frigo,
Michael will take photos.
afterthoughts
this practice deconstructs itself
it is fearless
it pushes into itself
it doesn’t know
it fights
it flies
it carries
it is beginning
it is ending
it re-defines rhythm of middle
it is agile
and able to trust an anchor that keeps shifting,
an audience that moves into stillness,
a stillness that is alive in an audience,
an audience that is performing,
a performer that becomes an audience,
a generous activity where we are all middle,
all beginning
all ending
in writing
in listening
in falling
in carrying
in speaking
in screaming
in covering
in drawing
in dancing
in holding
in uncovering
in performing
in witnessing
in watching
in waiting
in wanting
in this whole thing
that is whole
that is
is
is
oiseau
is
fulcrum superhero
that is
drawing to a close
that is up in the air
that is down on the ground
that finishes
with the four of us
all equidistant
in the audience
watching with
the open space
the chaos of paper
and wrapping
and writing
… all now
an aftermath
a quiet,
place
for
contemplation,
a sacred space,
irreverent
and
alive in spirit and spit and saliva
.. the beating hearts of
all eight of us together,
infinity … with a fulcrum.
Lin Snelling
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