Spontenaity- Improvisation/ Object/ Image.

'Mapping The Familiar Streets' (2010)

After visiting the 'Lost in Lace' (2011) exhibition I am inspired by string. I have this urge to wrap myself in string. String restricts, holds, suspends, frees. String is extensive in terms of its uses and also creates an aesthetic image in a performance space.







'Perhaps we are like stones, our own history and the history of the world embedded in us'.

I begin with loss and memory and I can't get it out of my head. A carcuss, the lumps and bumps engage my senses with each step and with each step a new lump or bump moulds my feet. I can not piece it together but perhaps, perhaps it does not fit. The rocks together, standing the strength of time and weather. It suddenly becomes about breath, in and out, in and out and I am concious of it. The song still plays on repeat always at the back of my mind, revolving for weeks. The blood pumps so fast, in-breaths are short, out breaths are long, circulating air as fast as possible. It is the same content. I can not think. Stamped upon every thought is a smiling face another etched thought.  Emotions are muddled, thoughts moulded. My breath is like his breath, my breath is a struggle. And the song still plays on repeat in my head and I can't get it out 'Running bear loves little white dove'. I begin with loss and memory. The computer is always broken making me all the more thankful to reach the top.

I am pondering on the past, on the objects of the past passed down through generations eventually into my own hands. The trace of being, what is left? The transitional objects of the dead become symbolic of the lost loved one. The objects we cling onto in order to reignite memories of specific lost loved ones.  

A bear belonging to my Great-Grandma. A little worse for wear but still a bear. Its inners spilling into the space.

A solid silver mirror once belonging to another Great-Grandma. Generations reflecting in its glass. Mirrors reflect images, they tell the truth, they make things visible. Generations reflecting in the glass.

How do these objects enhance the performance space? What do they bring to the existing material.



The loss of loved ones prompt a challenge to the meanings of the objects. 'Death reconstructs our experience of personal and household objects in particular ways: there is the strangeness of realising that things have out-lived  persons, and, in this regard, the materiality of the body.' (Gibson.)

 

'The Hankie Project' (2011) is an art performance event which explores the relationships which develop between grieving families and the transitional objects. In this case a handkerchief becomes representitive of the father. The project invited others to share similar stories and objects. (The handkerchief is a transitional object for many.)

Spontaneity- Movement/ Improvisation/ Text

A weekend in the studio.

I am realising a lot about the way I make work, the way I compose and the strategies which work best for me. I am also  beginning to recognize a 'dramatic' element in the way I perform. I am not regarding this as a negative point and plan to play on my dramatic performance skills to enhance future performances.

Do you know I am loud, my french teacher used to say "Kirsty you are like a Light-house." I think she actually meant fog-horn but had not quite mastered the English language.

I have a tendency to over-think when I am attempting to make material, usually resulting in poor material, which I am soon bored of and wanting to disregard. Automatic/ Improvisation techniques are providing me with what I consider suitable matererial for development. I speak of suitable material as texts and movement sequences that continue to excite me outside of the studio space.

This weekend I have been working collaboaratively with artists Moji, Holly and Beth. Developing automatic writing alongside movement sequences.

Take several action words to develop a movement sequence.


Knotting. Crumpling. Forgiving. Arguing. Persevering. Zooming. Paddling. Breaking. Neglecting. Leaving.

The following is developed with the choreography of Meg Stuart in mind. This particular style of minimalist choreography attempts to structure language through movement based sequences. The Solo guitarist singing alongside the movement sequences in 'Damaged Goods - Maybe Forever.' (2007) is considerably useful in relation to my staging of
1) 'Running Bear Loves Little White Dove' on a kareoke machine.
2) 'The Stories of Willie Wankie Woo Woo' on tape recording.

Backward fast, left arm signal wave. FSR - BSR. -  Right leg wrap round left leg, arms stretch to touch floor (balance lost) BSR. -   Sprint fast diagonally, chest jump up. BSR - FSL. - Bang hard attempting a conversation with the floor, monkey like. FSL - Fall to CS. - Attempt floor star sideways. Stand turn to side, lift left leg, point foot, place to floor, lift right leg, point foot, place to floor, repeat. CS. stand, mimic 'oar sequence.'

Finally a text.
Based on automatic writing sequences in relation to the movement.

She reversing like a ticking clock, explosion - tick, tock, tick tock.Vines entwining with a defiant struggle against the bottom. Pulling she down. She pulling... Free. She banging, like an ape, melodic, rhythmic. She exercising. She's daily routine. Scared to dip a toe in the fish tank fight strongly defiantly.

A Poem by Carol Ann Duffy

I happened upon this poem by accident.

Elvis's Twin Sister

In the convent, y'all,

I tend the gardens,

watch things grow,

pray for the immortal soul

of rock 'n' roll.

 

They call me

Sister Presley here,

The Reverend Mother

digs the way I move my hips

just like my brother.

 

Gregorian chant

drifts out across the herbs

Pascha nostrum immolatus est...

I wear a simple habit,

darkish hues,

 

a wimple with a novice-sewn

lace band, a rosary,

a chain of keys,

a pair of good and sturdy

blue suede shoes.

 

I think of it

as Graceland here,

a land of grace.

It puts my trademark slow lopsided smile

back on my face.

 

Lawdy.

I'm alive and well.

Long time since I walked

down Lonely Street

towards Heartbreak Hotel

Feeling Guilt - The Stories of Willie Wankie Woo Woo.

And I begin to feel guilty, because the real one has been disregarded. They were similar. Far too similar. Cut from the same cloth and promoting the same ideologies. How would he feel if he knew?

It is him who provides the childhood memories, he is blood. Another story plays over and over like a tape recording on repeat. Only this time it is a tape recording. There is a voice but no image.


(In a low Croaky Voice)

The Stories of Willie Wankie Woo Woo. I am Willie Wankie Woo Woo.

'I am going to go out shitting myself with fucking fear and cancer that god so kindly provided. Without that we wouldn't have a way to die would we? Fucking good of him not to torment us with being eternally young and being able to fuck everyone - no he gave us this great gift of fucking cancer. I wouldn't of thought of that if I'd been creating a universe would you? Bung in cancer? No I'd of left that out. '

An Old Man on a Mobility Scooter Zooms By (Station 1)

The following is the edited outcome of a simple Augusto Boal exercise which involves talking without stopping to think about what you are talking about. I found providing a starting visual image for the exercise helpful so began this exercise with a window in the minds eye. The text has been broken down with physical interruptions.

The window is wide open, anybody could get in. There is a fish tank. One toe goes in the fish tank. It's hot. It's really hot. (Pick up flask. Unscrew lid. Pop the top. Pour coffee into lid. Spill a little on the floor. Drink coffee in one. Replace lid.) An old man on a mobility scooter zooms by the window. The ashtray, filled with cigarette butts, so full there is ash overflowing on the carpets. Trapped here in a web spun by a spider which I swear had ten legs rather than eight. (A sharp intake of breath so the wheeziness of the throat is heard.) An old man on a moility scooter zooms by the window. He is wearing breathing apparatus and there are wires coming out everywhere. There is an elderly lady holding a stack of papers. She looks exhausted. Yellow nicotine hangs from the ceiling. And I am stuck on a supermarket slide. And my shoes are missing. And my feet hurt. And I am bleeding to death from a fish bite. (Pick up Flask. Unscrew lid. Pop the top. Pour coffee into lid. Spill a little on the floor. Drink coffee in one. Replace lid.) An old man on a mobility scooter zooms by the window. He is wearing breathing apparatus and there are wires coming out everywhere. He holds his hand up.  (Lift hand into V sign, swearing) The room is quiet.

Running Bear Loved Little White Dove

A real Romeo and Juliet Story. The song tells the story of two Native American's whose love is prohibited by their fighting tribes and also the raging river which stands between there lands. The pair's fate is told at the end of the song as they jump into the river to be with each other they both drown as they are pulled under by the rivers currents.

A Questioning of Self and Agenda

What material makes suitable performance material?

I really am beginning a soul searching exercise. But how can I search a soul I do not know well enough myself? How do I know myself?

I have this fascination with the unknowable and the space between knowing and not knowing. Where does my inner expression become my outer expression and vice versa. I mean this in both the physical and psychological sense. I have already explored the physical site, the scar as a borderline between the inner and the outer and I am well aware that bodily orifices provide another borderline between the inner and outer. But how do psychological scars and feelings present themselves on the outside?

'In performance you squeeze out yourself you dredge it up from your unconcious. It is a process of giving it a form, from the inner to the outer. The process can not be frivolous but must be deep, a deep commitment to yourself.' (Rachel Rosenthal: The Power of Feminist Art

I am entering what feels like an era of digging and playing or so it seems. Searching for stimuli which will eventually materialize but to make sense of it oh such another volume. The inability to explain. Can I explain? Can anybody explain? How do I begin to explain?

'We have no physicalized forms for mourning - the comfort we need to recieve or give. It's all in our eyes, staring straight ahead, quietly, tearful. We sit like hot stones.' (Carolee Schneeman: 1994-1995)

I am using grief as a performance therapy in order to create a fragment for performance. Memories, letters, songs, images - the things that imprint themselves in the mind. Those specific moments that are attached like tape recordings on repeat.

There is a danger of this becoming too selfish and self-indulgent.

I must make this work relevent to an audience in order to share it as a process.