Tertia Longmire and Aaron Williamson launched 'Energies of Writing' (Sound
& Language) at the One in the Other, Tenter Ground last Wednesday night. It
was a packed gallery room and a strong cross-artform audience of peers and
practitioners huddled together in the heat on the wooden warehouse room.
This book is their first collaboration and this performance their first
performance together.
It was a 'wordless' performance. No text was spoken and the only sounds
were 'mechanical' (breathing, falling, paper turning, pen on that paper).
Aaron almost broke into vocal resonance at one point but conspicuously
restrained the urge. He was finding it hard work, balancing barfeoot on a
stopping stone, every so often using his metre (a white wooden stick) to
support his efforts. A make-up mirror dangled on string from his left
wrist, whilst his right hand held a black felt tip pen.
But it was Tertia who had the surface to write on. She turned a scroll
across a white-painted desk and wrote on it, in black felt tip pen, as it
rolled past. She was writing upsides down. We, the audience, saw what she
was writing by means of a dressing table mirror placed on the table top.
Sometimes words formed clearly, sometimes the lines became traces without
alphabetic shape.
Words began and then the directions in which they might continue was played
with, sometimes to the point of nonsense.
Sometimes Aaron attempted to read what she was writing and trace her
writing in the air. The play of light from his dangling mirror on the
joisted roof caught my eyes more than once. Tertia also appeared to attempt
to scry what Aaron might be writing in the air by copying his gestures on
the rolling scroll.
Some of Aaron's physical gestures, particularly his use of writing hands (a
calligraphic version of playing air guitar), approach Asian dance (there
are strong links between Southern Indian dance gestures from Kathak and
Kathakali and Barath Natyam to Indian languages for deaf signing).
The performance was tense, witty and strongly awkward. It lasted about 25
minutes, the length of time it took to write the full length of the paper
scroll.
Their book costs £5 and can be bought direct from me at:
85 London Road South. Lowestoft. Suffolk NR33 OAS
love and love
cris
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