a wave that could straddle a galaxy

stream of consciousness response to 'untitled work for voice' at danspace projects 2/24/18




pace rhythm cadence implies something sacred
sheets of metal shaken to make thunder,
leaving a newborn thing in the middle of the floor, alone

uncomfortable swallow of old man next to me as the singular performer in front of us rippled and unfolded slowly

watching someone caress the floor with such reverence makes me want to do the same
voice as resonant as her body is subtle
I notice the desire for purpose, meaning, intentions, to be illuminated
maybe because I am watching bodies make shapes and images and words, rather than purely instrumental music
maybe that is what I am witnessing exactly, how the body is an instrument

sounds eventually string together to form words
to be like a chant, an incantation, a skipping record
a confusion between spiritual and mundane/broken
like a flash of potential light words layer together into recognizable fragments
I can feel more specific feelings about
playing with reach/texture/shape of sounds-that-become-words

how are the performers supported/nourished by each other's movements, focus, sounds?
words and movements seem unrelated - what is made available
by breaking them free from each other?
words become a series of absurd sounds, same as the movements they make with their bodies
performed with ritual focus, solemn

what is the relationship between force and meaning?
are the sounds and movements trapped by something? struggling to get out of their bodies?
Pathological?
Stripped of their original meaning?
Given new ones?
How are their movements helping generate the sounds they make?
what happens when you explore that relationship?

Why is synchronized movement so moving, impactful?
slow motion dagger dance
like samurai, a dance of paranoia, precision, protection, threatening

A dancer flails and shakes like she is filled with rage, pain
while someone tries to dress her patiently

as she struggles to communicate, she lets it wrack her body violently
equal parts traumatic and cathartic it feels to me
both powerful and exhausting to feel so much
her movements shape the song fragment she sings
sharp intakes of breath, her feet on the floor like a drum
punctuating the spaces between wordsounds

she didn't remove her engagement ring for this performance
its sparkle distracts me in her sudden stillness
winking

they are silhouetted suddenly
every intimate detail of the outskirts of the performer's bodies
nuances of their individual forms highlighted

moving in and out of tandem shapes and gestures is oddly breathtaking
why does it move me so much
especially when chaos seamlessly becomes a rhythm
the moment when formlessness becomes organized into form
alchemized
the individuality of their bodies is sharply highlighted
but through the mirror of similar movements now

the old man next to me watches offstage
the female performer he swallowed hard at in the beginning

What is it about something with the patina of pathology
touches a weird emotional spot in me for some reason
I notice discomfort sometimes, space for the expression to take the path it takes at other points
is that called patience?
benevolence?
maybe it reminds me of a man I love dearly with a stutter that strangles his whole body
almost constantly

humming in short bursts like a clock
metronomic
the rhythm changes, becomes subtly erratic
it feels like she is bending time
time emanates from her body
is subject to her whims
and when she eventually runs out of breath

Shapes from earlier reappear
foreshadowing vs laying a foundation - are they different?
drawing a line through time like a bread crumb trail in our memory
to make something familiar that wasn't before

Are the sentences from old movies?
is there some recently forgotten memory being excavated?
layers of familiar, pulled a part
stacked up again in a different way

unafraid to make ugly or uncomfortable sounds
exploring the shapes of syllables that form words with meanings attached
that live outside, beyond the performers as they chew and choke and push them out
with their entire bodies

this one sounds like play
like exploring the sound and volume and physical shapes
of this particular performer's potential to fill the room
it feels liberating
it feels like joy

I wish someone would look at me the way she looked at the bottom of her foot
piercing
fleeting
its already the distant past by now but I will remember it for a long time

wordsounds ring through the church like a choir
childish chaps swirl around a performer's legs like the religious dress of a whirling dervish
sound of footsteps like a drumbeat slowly recedes in the sudden symbolic darkness
that lives at the end

bits of light from outside catching the stained glass windows all around us
the building's final statement

These endless catacombs of self-reference.

 

conflict (v.)

early 15c., from Latin conflictus, past participle of confligere "to strike together, be in conflict," from com- "together" (see com-) + fligere "to strike" (see afflict).

In the first stages of development after we are born, we begin to define ourselves in space - it is pushing against things that lets us know ourselves, and I don't think that ever changes, that what we come up against shows us who and what we are. What we really believe in. How what we risk can also reveal what we value. How what we attack can tell us what we are afraid of admitting about ourselves most. And finally, how necessary discomfort is to inspiring change.

There exists a number of primal urges for survival that we share, especially predictability, certainty, structure. There is a refuge in rules. Rituals, habits, landmarks are all ways to synchronize ourselves in time and space, moving to the metronome of our breath, but maybe without conflict it is hard to tell where we stop and another person begins. I have a hard time arguing that war and injustice are unnecessary when they have taught us so much about ourselves. That maybe there is something uniquely powerful about being stripped down to your core, so you can build a house that YOU want to live in, on a foundation you believe in - and not be constrained to the limitations of its previous identity. Maybe the idea of catharsis is deeply intertwined in destruction of anything, but manifests as violence against other, since destruction of our own identity calls up the question of what we have left to orient ourselves around - and in choosing what we value automatically implies a devaluing of everything else.

Is there a way to honor something in its destruction? Like a Viking funeral, can we also dispatch of our history with reverence? To honor the life of a fallen building and all it has silently witnessed of our trials and tribulations? Mourning the death of an identity is necessary. Healthy. Valuable. Cathartic. Maybe extending an invitation to affected communities to be participants in the mourning of that symbolic relationship and the shift in their emotional landscape might make letting go just a little bit easier.

I recently learned that in the Torah, there are prayers devoted to people who have committed suicide - and the language focuses a lot on the individual having nowhere to go, nowhere to turn... that they didn't have space.

Maybe there is deep psychological value to considering how we orient ourselves in time and space, how it can help us, as well as how it can hold us back, and how it can be used against us. How making space can be an invitation rather than an attack. How it can honor the past by being a sacrifice to the future. That an inhale is just half of a breath, and exhaling its necessary conclusion to make space for the next one. How choosing what we keep and letting go of things that no longer serve us can be a powerful language for expression of Self.

 

- from an article about the evolution of rap

''There was a sea change in organizing when [NWA’s] “Fuck tha Police” came out. Before, even dope dealers I knew had this feeling, like, the police are the good guys. “Fuck tha Police” changed that orientation; it kind of chronicles that. [Their songs have] got misogyny, they’ve got glorifying murdering each other, things like that, because it comes out of the culture that capitalism has created. I think it’s important for us not just to edit the culture that capitalism creates, but to create the material basis for a culture that we want."

 

- Boots Riley

an American poet, rapper, songwriter, producer, screenwriter, humorist, political organizer, community activist, lecturer, and public speaker