I need to write down this stuff so as to sequence my thoughts, which are all muddled up and hence causing me stress:
I spent time in glór studio this morning with a view to developing/rehearsing some movement sequences for the upcoming performance I am doing for the art event in Gävle, Sweden. Name of event: Ad Spatium (meaning, to go the distance) its latin, and therefore a compromise between English and Swedish. Event is on 12 February, and I have the usual low level humming anxiety over what to do and how. I have been thinking about it for about 3 weeks now, complacency is not an option :) The added issues of a language barrier and me not knowing the general temperament of Swedish people and Swedish arty types and non art types and who will be going if anyone and what they think performance art is.
Actually I know this doesn’t matter.
Anyway My time in glór told me the following: floors are hard and unforgiving :) id thought about a series of repetitive movements drawing from body weight routines I would have done before, and slightly progressing changing each set of two mirrored reps. movement patterns I thought of- crawling along, outwards and back inwards (backwards crawling) with chalk in hands and in my mouth ( I had no chalk or paper with me so it was fairly hypothetical) gesturing on floor, reaching stretching turning over, rotating, using chalk in hands feet mouth. moving faster, slower, changing direction. trying to push away the floor. To work with sound or not? thinking about how to tie in elements of my practice with this performance. This stayed with me from my drive back from revision with Day magee car sharing- he mentioned each performance bing like a step along the journey, a development of the last. Two areas which could be relevant- working with children – my current daily work- which involves music and moods, and and repetitive daily actions from my last performance with revision.
So I need to either draw on the floor or have a large piece of paper attached to floor. trying to put into words essence I want to achieve:
ritualistc – certain tasks included as homage to whats come before and whats happenign now
reactionary– to whats around me in the space at the time of performance
repetitive– certain movemens over and over to see how this feels- investigating flow state?
rythmic– to the sounds- maybe from people- coughing, talking, whispering, walking, or reacting and working to the music- thinking about Pauline Oliveros Bye Bye Butterfly
response– to the space and to my emotions
thought about starting by drawing around my bare feet, then onto my knees and drawing around that space, and so on. could incorporate into Tracing around people, around audience..
i want to be wearing a white t shirt and white jeans – use black compressed charcoal
to go the distance- to keep going
tried another bit of movement tonight
other notes made earlier- just getting thoughts down for the moment
tried making a head piece of gaffer tape- Head piece made of thick elastic black bands over forehead under chin etc, with places to hold crayons in it. Drawing machine- strap a crayon or charcoal to my head- and hold one in my Mouth, and use one in each hand and one in each toe. Crawl around and make marks in different ways. tried this, nearly pulled off chunks of skin and hair. ouch.
Movements- thinking about my body weight movements. Lateral knee drop. Rolling like a ball. Commando cradle. Kneel, tuck in toes, low squat, stand repeat. Reaching over and stretching through and around to make a mark behind my back. Take one gesture or action and slow it down and break it down into small parts and start kneeling down embryonic position then sitting up, repeat over and over each time increasing the range of the movement it could be a kick if it could be when you see someone you’ve not seen for ages snd you compotes your features into a forced smile or if you hear some news that makes toy about to cry and you push the range of action a little more until you have completed the action in agonising annoying slowness accompanied by slowed down 1/ heartbeat channelling a bit like when I see annie get hurt and I can see and anticipate what’s going to happen and I see it unfold snd there’s nothing I can do and I see the intensity grow like a tsunami of grief and I cannot stop it only witness it and try to manage it but not stop it – call it a glimpse of grief – you move through the action and the action frowns- then rewind, repeat and each time a little more and the scream starts, you see the breath drawn in, and the scream grows, each time a little more (maybe no sound all shaking like a silent movie abc this ties in with the language barrier issue) thinking about how long this in between moments feels- its like standing in a valley in a vacuum of silence, knowing that next minute you are going to get hit by a wave of noise and emotion and grief like a blast.how to make this?
Going t the distance Drawing a very big drawing on the floorUsing charcoal held in my mouth crawling Held in my toes reaching around in a circle leaping around like as if having to jump from stepping stone to stone the floor is lava- treating as reactionary drawing to who ever is there- Paper on a wall whoever comes in goes into the drawing they get added
