Transcription
A quiet high-pitched human humming over an audio recording of a person talking, saying:
“It was bad I felt like I just wanted to be in bed. I didn’t even want to listen to anything, I didn’t want to watch tv, it just felt like my body was shutting down.”
(The high-pitched hum continues and changes tone. The sound of bees or another kind of insect swarming. It fades.)
A pitched-down voice sings:
“Then the fog comes in from the sewers and glows in the dark”.
(the sound of bare footsteps walking across the room)
Heni Hale: Hi everybody, welcome to Crossing Borders this evening. This year Crossing Borders is in partnership with Sadler’s Wells, The Society for Dance Research and University of Roehampton, so we’re really delighted to have these partners on board to help these talks happen. And it’s six weeks this year, and all of the events are a conversation series. So they are two artists that come together to discuss and share practice in different ways, and they all have slightly different ways of doing that, and holding a conversation. So this evening I’m delighted to welcome Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome and Leah Clements. Thanks very much for being here.
(applause)
(bare footsteps)
Leah: First of all if you need to go to the toilet which is just outside, or move around
(a squeaky sound, maybe somebody taking off the top of a water bottle)
If you need to sit on the floor, go from the floor to a chair or something, please do, feel free. If you need to tick then tick. Yeah, so...shall I go first?
So my name’s Leah Clements, I’m an artist based in London, which is where I grew up, I haven’t gone anywhere. I work in a lot of different mediums but particularly in film and performance, and I work a lot around disability and access as well, in practical ways but also as a part of my artwork. And I’ll talk a little bit more about that later. Yeah, I think that’s all I’ll say for now.
Fernanda: I’m Fernanda, and I’m a choreographer and a dance artist. And I suppose, this talk is called Inchoate Buzz, and that is also the title of a work that recently, very recently, was performed at the Lilian Bayliss, Sadler’s Wells. So this has kind of been for me a culmination of some research. So the title kind of means, ‘Inchoate’ I had to look up but I really like the word. And it means a beginning of life. So it can be an embryonic state, the very beginnings of something kind of lively. And then Buzz, those two words together seem to bring about an interesting texture or sensation or something which could be, for me that kind of happens in the word, so it feels like a sensation in the title. So it felt appropriate, and we’ll be talking about that work a little bit, so just to cover the title now. (L&F giggle).
I’m a choreographer and dance artist, and a couple of years ago I did the MA here which was an incredible experience and marked a bit of turning point for me, for making and being in conversation with other artists and people. I’m also on the board at ID, a new member, which is really exciting. Yeah, maybe that’s all I’ll say for now.
Leah: I’m just going to say a little bit about the film that was just on. So that’s a film I made - I finished it earlier this year but I was making it for a few years, and I interviewed seven people who fall asleep in response to distress, so as a coping mechanism. And I filmed footage where I was being tested for narcolepsy in Guy’s Hospital Sleep Clinic, in thermal imaging. The thermal imaging means you can see things you wouldn’t normally be able to see, like the traces of heat left behind on surfaces, or bricks behind wallpaper and stuff like this. And you can’t see things that you normally would, like the iris of an eye, or the keys on a keyboard because it’s all the same temperature. I was interested in shifting away from what feels normal (someone sneezes) to a slightly parallel realm, which is something we might talk about a little bit later, in terms of different states of consciousness. The film’s called ‘Collapse’ and I was interested in falling asleep as a response to distress as this way of removing yourself from a situation, your consciousness from a situation you can’t actually physically remove yourself from. And a lot of people in the film talk about different scenarios, so a few of them talk about it happening a lot when they’re at work, so that goes into resistance against labour structures and things like that. I’m really interested in the idea that your body could take over and remove you from somewhere, even if it’s involuntary. And also that tension between it being voluntary and involuntary.
So yeah! Something I wanted to ask you about was you were talking about gut intelligence when we were speaking before, and I wanted to hear a bit more about that. What is it?
F: Well, I just want to say before, that maybe it’s interesting, maybe, because we started having some conversations just, I don’t know how long ago it was, maybe…
L: At the beginning of the year?
F: Maybe, something like that. So yeah, for me it’s interesting to bring it into the room, it’s in a thread that we’ve been meeting up and having conversations, about being interested in each other’s practices or something. So it feels like a really nice opportunity to be able to continue that here with you present, and just see what else unfolds out of that as well, as a continued process. But yeah, gut intelligence. I suppose during my MA here, during a module called ‘Embodied Practice’, I was going into my body in different ways that I hadn’t really before. And also, when I move in my practice quite a lot, in some of my practice there'a a lot of moving and speaking or moving and sounding and dancing and thinking processes happening. And I think during that MA module something I tapped into which has continued to be a really interesting thread for me, was I suppose a way of getting out of a busy brain/mind or something, and maybe an opportunity of going into a messier body, and also in terms of any kind of relations we might have with the gut. It has, in maybe quite an unconventional way the gut is quite a messy, unknown kind of low part of the body, which expels and kind of processes. So I suppose I was interested to go into that kind of intelligent space in our bodies and explore what kind of language was there. By bringing my imagination into my gut, and sounds, so connecting with I suppose emotion, sensation, memory, or lots of things. So yeah, it led me to a certain kind of unruliness, an unruly sense of my body, which I didn’t really before have a relationship to. And it really, in the way that it’s...in a process brought me to another situation. So definitely a lot to do with imagination, and relocating a sense of thinking, so having a thinking body, and that could be taken to bone structures, or energetic centres in the body...surfaces...locations.
L: One of the things we were talking about before as well, you were talking about a process, which is I think to do with this, what you were just saying, of trying to be in your body, be more in your body, as opposed to -
F: Mmm
L: Yeah, go on!
F: Yeah, I think I tend to have a really busy head/mind or something. And just as a process of getting that kind of thinking into my body. I needed to be doing that kind of activity or something. Yeah.
L: Yeah, that makes sense. Something I was thinking was how it’s different for me...so I have a chronic illness...it feels weird to announce that to everybody! I am disabled, and I will often have the opposite, of trying to not be in my body, and trying to remove myself from my body. To try to not experience pain, chronic pain, or other unpleasant sensations. Not that I don’t have a messy mind as well actually, but I’m interested in that difference between trying to be in your body or trying to remove yourself from your body, and dissociate from it.
F: That’s a thread we’ve found but maybe only just articulated recently?
L: Yeah
F: About some kind of meeting points and then divergences in our practices, or through a practice of constantly moving into a body, and through a practice, exploring - or maybe you could talk a bit more about that, with your work?
L: Yeah there’s a few roads I could go down with that now, I’m just thinking...Well, just in terms of practicality, I can move physically and I can dance if I want to, but there will be consequences. So I might have a bit of a hangover from it, nothing to do with drinking, but there might be repercussions the next day. Or my lasting memory now is, last year I went to a party and had a dance and then I was in bed for a week. So the idea of moving in that way sounds so nice to me, and being in your body in that way sounds so nice to me, but is also something that I feel I have to avoid, and doesn’t feel totally safe to me. But at the same time I was also - because I’m positioning that as opposite to your approach but it’s actually not. Particularly as you’ve decentred away from a few things. You were talking about decentring the visual, and thinking of dance as a many-sensored practice, and I want to ask you more about that as well. But also these restful moments that are programmed into - not programmed - designed into your choreography. So actually now I’m thinking maybe it’s not totally the binary that we were thinking. Do you know what I mean?
F: Yeah. Yeah, completely. And so maybe it’s also helpful to talk a little bit more about ‘Inchoate Buzz’, this work which - I recently curated a ‘Wild Card’, the Lilian Bayliss, last Thursday and Friday. And this work was, I suppose it’s the overall environment in the space. It was a black box space, so the seating was away. And it’s a collaboration with a visual artist, India Harvey, who designed and made this horizontal soft space. Different soft spaces in the black box, which I invite the audience into. And Josh Anio Grigg who I work a lot with on sound, and I’m using my voice a lot, speaking a lot. And in this version, this work hosted other artists’ practices; Jamilla Johnson-Small; Rakia, Isabelle Munoz-Newsome who is my sister, she has a band, Keira Coward; Eve Stainton, yeah, so, all these different practices were in this environment. But as a starting place, I invite the audience into this horizontal environment. In the work I’m using touch with the audience, and so there’s work around consent with this. And also, this practice of speaking that I have, which is encouraging the audience into this horizontally relaxed, almost dream-like, maybe in-between state, as a way into this event that happened. But talking about, yeah, I suppose relaxed states.
L: Yeah, relaxed states, and there’s touch going on, there’s visual stuff going on, and there is sound going on as well, because you’re talking as well. So I hadn’t even considered that before we were talking about all of this, that dance could be a not 100% visual medium. Which I find really interesting.
F: Yeah, I think that is a major part of this work Inchoate Buzz, to reorient around our senses, so, incorporating and kind of mixing up our senses so that there can be other access points to be with performance, and to be with people. Yeah, so, deprioritising the seeing sense.
L: Yeah - sorry, I was going to say something were you going to say something?
F: No, go ahead.
L: I was just going to come a bit back to what you were saying about entering into a different kind of headspace by going into that restfulness. And, do you mind if we talk about the Isobels?
F: Oh yeah
(both laugh)
L: Both our sisters are called Isobel, so they’re now the Isobels. We keep talking about our sisters, all the time for some reason! But one of the things that came up when we were talking about this was, we were both talking about speaking with our sisters whilst going to sleep, and we had slightly different experiences of that, but both felt really marked, and important. Mine was. My sister talks in her sleep, and she did a lot when we were kids, and we shared a room. So I would talk to her while she was fast asleep quite often. Which could be quite funny. She was always furious. (laughter) She’d get up and walk around as well and I’d put her back to bed. So yeah, trying to work out what was going on in her mind, and what was going on in her dreams through asking her questions gently. Not pointing out the fact that it was illogical. You can’t say ‘What are you dreaming about?’ because she’ll either wake up or get angry, and not understand. So you have to respond to what she’s saying, and pretend that you’re involved in the same conversation to get anything out of her. Like if she just went ‘Yeah I did the thing!’ then you might say ‘Are you happy about it?’ or ‘Are you proud?’and you know, just pretend you’re already there. (laughter) And that as a weird…
F: Would she respond?
L: Yeah! Yeah, yeah. She’d sometimes shout at me which she didn’t generally do when she was awake. But yeah, then eventually I’d just go (whispered:) ‘Go back to sleep Isobel.’ Sometimes weird things would surface about things that she didn’t seem to be angry about during the day but...I haven't asked her if I can talk about this so, I’m sure she won’t mind what I’ve said so far but I won’t say anything else! (laughter) But then your version was something that is I think in your work a bit, and also in my work, which is entering into a different, imaginative kind of dream-like state whilst not asleep. Which is the transition into night time, and talking at night time.
F: Yeah, cus, with my Isobel, my sister, if we slept in the same bed then we’d turn the lights out, and we’d just...we’d always be like ‘Night!’ ‘Yeah night!’, turn the lights out, and then it was almost like this whole other world would open up just through our talking. And it would go on and on, into the night. It was almost like we could access a space together or something, like we were thinking together or dreaming together, or yeah, I don’t know. In this kind of wondering...but also sometimes with anecdotes, or different kinds of information were in there. And I suppose maybe that is in my work, with the talking.
L: Yeah, cus you’re putting people into that headspace with you.
F: Yeah.
L: By having that restful...and you’ve got, not a narrative exactly, but you’ve got these words that you use that are quite...for me it feels like trying to dissolve into a collective state of consciousness. It’s like a hyperegression into pre...linguistic…
F: Ah yes, the soup!
L: Yeah! The soup! The primordial soup! Yes!
F: And also as I’m saying that as well it’s making me think of your work, which is...the title escapes me…
L: Which one?
F: The one with the people coming together at a gallery, with the dreaming.
L: Oh yeah yeah yeah. So this was a performance work that grew out of a workshop I did. So for the workshop I trained a group of people to do lucid dreaming. And over the course of a week we tried to direct our dreams towards primal, prehistoric memories, based on this scientific theory - I mean it’s kind of regarded by most of the science community as pseudoscience but he is a real scientist. This theory called Morphic Resonance, which is that you inherit memories, humans inherit memories. And that it would be possible to have inherited a memory from pre-history. So I was really interested in that idea, and thought as a group maybe we could try to find some of those. So we tried to direct our dreams towards these prehistoric memories, for a week. And then on the last night we tried to meet in a dream, as a group. Some people made the meeting, one person turned up late but was too embarrassed to join so just flew over and flew away. Yeah, and we all kind of had similar dreams - we all had moments where we were standing on top of something, looking down, and then came down. So like someone had a mezzanine, someone was on top of a building, someone was just a few floors up looking through a window, and then came down. And something to do with a body of water, and a lot of people had lizards, lizardy things. So then I got everyone to write up their dreams and took the bits that were in common and then wrote it into one coherent thing, and then that formed a performance where some people in the group read that aloud. Yeah. Umm I can’t remem - what were we just talking about?
F: We were talking about the…(giggles) Well cus, I was saying about -
L: The soup!
F: The soup. (laughter) But also that kind of meeting someone else, or other people, in another space that you’re creating, together.
L: Yeah.
F: Somehow.
L: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Much in the same way that I’m interested in people forming asleep as a resistance in a time and place where there’s no other resistance possible, I’m also interested in the idea of the collective unconscious as a commons, like the last, the final commons (laughter) that is ours and accessible to anyone. The idea of collectiveness, I think, is really important in both of our work. Because we were talking as well about - so the film you saw earlier, that’s one of the ways I’ll try to form collectiveness out of individualised experiences, so each of those people thought that they were pretty much the only one who did that. And then after I had done that, they new that loads of other people have this thing where they fall asleep in times of distress. And then to have brought all of those voices together as well. I think what’s at the core of that really is feeling that systems of oppression like capitalism will individualise particular experiences that don’t fit into the structure as it sees itself. So if people are falling asleep in times of distress it’s because there’s some underlying untenable position that they want to exit from. For me, falling asleep at work, in the situations like that person was describing, or a lot of the other situations that people were describing, sounds like a really reasonable response. It sounds like a really reasonable response to existing under a system of oppression. But if you individualise it, and place the blame on one person, and it’s not a collective response, it’s something that only ‘you’ do, then you can kind of quash it to an extent. But then we were talking about language as something that can be overformalising and destructive of experiences, as well as something that can name something. And if you name something, if you have a word for something, if you have a language for something, you can share that with other people and you can recognise that in one another and you can come together over that as a particular experience for example. But then, yeah, there’s a kind of borderline between that and going into pathologisation for example. And um, you were talking about language as different to that sort of gut intelligence thing you were talking about before. And tacit knowledge, I think we were talking about. So knowing things are not articulable and shouldn’t necessarily be articulable. (Leah laughs) Sorry, is that a lot in one go? (giggles)
F: Yeah! I suppose we were also talking about naming or putting a name to something.
L: Yeah, well just knowing something with your gut is different to knowing it with your head, it’s a different sensation isn’t it?
F: Yeah, I would say so. But, sorry, I’ve still got ahold of something we were talking about before.
L: Yeah yeah, go ahead.
F: I just want to take us back there if that’s alright.
L: Yeah yeah.
F: Alright. Because I’m also interested in the way that you...your working with individuals, having quite intimate conversations I suppose, about experiences or illnesses and other things, and I was just interested in that. And also, I suppose in my work I think I do, I work collaboratively quite a lot, I work a lot through having dialogues and friendships, and different kinds of communication that seem to come into the works that I make. Or those conversations are in the room, that’s how I feel it. And I was interested in the quite - with my work, it could be one-to-one for sure, it is, but it’s also in groups as well. Whether that’s facilitating a workshop or working with a group or whatever. But I was kind of interested in, how you think of your work as collaborative? Or if those kind of intimate conversations are something else? I don’t know, I was thinking about it.
L: Yeah. I think it’s different every time. Every piece of work and every project. There’s definitely always some level of collaboration in that I’m speaking with people who are kind enough to give me their time, and to talk about often quite personal things, which completely underlines the whole work. And then there are other kinds of collaboration like in the last film I made, Blue Maignien who is a sound designer, musician, sound artist, made the score for it, which I had never had before, and which was a really nice experience. So there’s that kind of collaboration as well, where I’m making a film and someone’s doing the sound and we’re working out how we do that. To then something else like when I made this online resource for disabled artists called Access Docs for Artists which was completely collaborative, which was made from speaking with, hanging out with, talking with loads and loads of people, living with some people for a few weeks as well in Wysing Arts Centre which is in Cambridgeshire, on a residency. And there were loads of people who contributed to it in one way or another, just by talking with us. And then me, another artist called Lizzy Rose and a writer called Alice Hattrick made the website together, so it’s completely collaborative in that sense.
F: And it’s really interesting, and if you have an opportunity you should definitely check it out, because I think it’s a really incredible source of support and information for artists that’s available online, it’s really worth a check.
L: Thank you.
F: Yeah. (Fernanda laughs)
L: Yeah, I think for the last few years the crip artist community has been so important to me. A friend of mine who is also disabled and an artist made this map of crip allies. It’s a google maps thing, where she’s marked Leah in London, and someone else in New York, and someone else in Berlin, and it’s really amazing and it’s so sweet. And it’s like ah, I wish I’d thought of this, this is exactly what I need, and when we made Access Docs for Artists, there was another disabled artist called Bella Milroy who got in touch and said ‘The disabled gods have smiled upon us today!’ (Leah laughs) Just like - ‘I need this right now! I need this this week! Thank you!’ And there’s so much sharing back and forth, and there’s so much support in every way, in art practice, in working as an artist just in terms of professional stuff and how you deal with things, to a lot of emotional support around being chronically ill and how you even cope with that, and language! Finding language together, to describe that. And just the sensation that you’re all on the same team, has been incredibly important to me. And I think you’ve worked with so many different choreographers, dancers, artists, collaboration feels so core to your work. Like India’s sculptures, and you’ve worked with Jamila loads of times right?
F: Yeah.
L: Yeah, yeah.
F: Yeah I suppose I have kind of different, well, just actually since I first started making work, I was wanting to I suppose get out of the dance world, in order to have conversations with people who I kind of feel excited by, or something. And maybe that was just at the end of dance training you maybe reach a point where you’re like ‘Argh! I need some other voices going on!’ So yeah, that definitely took me to be going into more visual art worlds I think, immediately, with finding people to be in conversation with. And finding allies, or just like threads of stuff which was potent and exciting and just made me want to be making stuff or something. So yeah, definitely my starting point of making and performing was going into more visual arts contexts. And yeah, I feel that’s definitely been much more of my journey in as far as choreographically making and presenting. And then just in the last...well, since doing the MA here, more popping up in the dance world is really exciting. Which also feels bizarre saying that, somehow, here, now. Yeah, it’s just really exciting to be more going back into the dance world with whatever is going on now.
L: Yeah I guess you must just have all sorts of different kinds of conversations. I’ve found it really interesting talking to you, and getting a different perspective on my work. Everyone’s going to come at it from a different angle. We were talking before about when I came here before and you had that environment set up, and I just had a really long list of responses, of basically references, in a really referential way. (Leah laughs)
F: A really incredible way. I think it was the first time you came into the studio.
L: Yeah.
F: And I was just showing a short excerpt of the Inchoate Buzz work, and it was just really interesting for me, Leah’s response of immediately making all these incredible links to many different artists, and different kinds of, I don’t know, was really fascinated by your thinking, I am fascinated! (laughter) By how you think and produce knowledge.
L: I think a lot of it is being trained as an artist, and I think a lot of that is my education, and I think that is how a lot of artists think. I don’t know where that ends and stuff that’s just me begins. I guess that is part of me anyway. Do you know what I mean?
F: Mmm. I think we were talking about...oh maybe I’ve lost it, but just I suppose maybe that, just language in each of our practices or something? Or how we kind of access language. Or find the language that we need to talk about what it is that we do, or the work or whatever it is.
L: Which is why it’s so nice when you find a word like ‘Inchoate’ (Leah laughs) Just to articulate something for yourself.
(Fernanda and Leah laugh)
L: Yeah. I’m really interested in things that are sort of inarticulable. Feelings and sensations and experiences that are hard to put words to. Go on.
F: Yeah, no, just also as you’re saying that - feelings, and emotions, and I know that that’s in your work. I don’t think I’ve really asked you about that. How that is within your work. Or if that’s something that...
L: Yeah, I think a lot of it is done through...I try to play around a lot with affect, in terms of almost creating the feeling of the thing, by using...so, a good example is this film called ‘Protection’ that I made, which is also about somebody who falls asleep in times of distress, but it’s just a portrait shot of one person who is looking at something off screen, and she keeps covering her face like that (Leah covers her eyes with her hands). And there’s a voice that keeps saying “Stay connected here”. And then each time she covers her face the film fades out, into blackness. And if you watch that in a dark room as a projection then you are immersed in the same experience as her. So you can find it disruptive or lulling, you’re kind of dipping in and out of consciousness at the same time she is. So in terms of emotion and feeling, I think it’s often explored through affect in that sense. Or in the film I made where there’s someone swimming underwater for a really long time and you don’t see them come up, a lot of people have said they’ve found themselves holding their breath while they were watching that and only realised when the scene ended. I dunno, it can also be done through quite formal...like in that same film there’s a sleep neurologist talking about dissociative seizures, which is where somebody has all the tropes of having an epileptic seizure, but their brain waves are not...the same thing that would be happening in a person’s brain when they’re having an epileptic seizure isn’t happening in their brain. And it's similar to falling asleep in response to distress, it’s something that happens in response to distress. But in a very clinical way. So there’s both the intense affect of feeling the actual feeling, and then the quite cold descriptive sense as well. Yeah.
F: And I also find some of that language that you also talk about, I suppose different conditions, I find it really fascinating, because talking about tacit knowledge, I feel like I don’t work like that, I don’t really hold on to, or I wouldn’t even, I don’t know, it just doesn’t occur to me to have that kind of information or knowledge. I don’t store it or something.
L: In your brain.
F: In my brain, yeah. But I find it endlessly fascinating, all of the kind of...I don’t know, when we’re talking there's a kind of naming of experiences or situations which makes me see things really differently.
L: Yeah. I find it really interesting - just the idea of responding with your body. Because I often am so dissociated from my body. The feeling of just knowing something in your body and in your gut. And experiencing and responding in that way sounds really freeing.
…
L: Shall we move on? Or did you have a final thought?
F: No maybe it’s fine.
L: No go on.
F: Well I was just curious to talk, maybe we have touched on it, but talking about...other states, or...but maybe we have touched on it.
L: We have touched on it but what did you want to say?
F: Um...I think it’s fine. How’s everyone doing? (giggles) Cus I just thought I might propose something. But you don’t have to do it, you're free to stay exactly where you are. But I thought I’d propose something which involves getting up and moving around for a short time. Does that sound alright?
(quiet murmurs of agreement & slight giggles)
F: So yeah, if, maybe stand, that would cool. Or don’t stand if you don’t want to stand. You can stay exactly where you are. But yeah. And this is something from Inchoate Buzz.
So maybe just take a walk around…
(footsteps)
And watch out for glasses of water, phones, things like that.
And maybe, if you want you can kind of move your body a bit, or just, I always feel a bit stagnant after sitting.
So yeah maybe just noticing, perhaps the ground underfoot. And...any smells. If there’s any kind of smell. Or...maybe there’s a taste in the mouth...Maybe we can hear all the stuff which is close around us...Or perhaps there are sounds that are further away, outside the space.
(continued footsteps)
And then, so...maybe wherever you are, or if you feel drawn to the pink things, maybe you could just lie down. Wherever.
(footsteps stop, sound of people moving to lie down)
(a yawn)
Resting
Falling
From above
Down to
Beneath
Weighted
Soggy
Soggy
Particles
Squidging
Cells
Squidging
Only
Architectures
Cavernous
Inside
Spaces
Stirring
A droplet
Of stir
Pouring
From one
To the other
To the other
Pooling
Purple liquids
Heart
Centre
Shiny
Shards
Slithering
Unfolding
Cool ssssurfaccccces
Endlesssssss ssssurfaccessss
Tiny
Slippery
Tadpole
Life
Sludgey
Tail prints
(a noise made with the mouth, a little like echolocation, a kind of clicking. Someone is moving.)
Sauerkraut
Cultures
Curdelssss
(clicking)
Bubble bubble bubble bubbling bubbling bubble bubble
(clicking)
Deep ssea
Magic
(clicking)
Fluorescence
And um. Oo. I suppose that’s a little something. And. I just thought, maybe we don’t have to move, we could stay where we are, wherever, however you feel comfortable. But I’m kind of interested in opening for any questions, or thoughts, and maybe it’s nice to stay without looking at one another. So yeah, just anyone, or any things.
L: It’s like being in a chez longue, you know the psychoanalytic thing of not looking at your therapist while you talk to them.
(laughter)
F: Oh wow.
(laughter)
F: Well you can position yourselves however you like. I’m quite into lying down right now but you can do whatever anyone wants to do.
Person A: In the abstract for the, in the description for tonight, you talked about the performances you do as being non-hierarchical. And I’m not sure whose work that related to, Fernanda or Leah, but I was wondering if you could talk a bit more about that idea of ‘non-hierarchical’ and how that works, in your work.
F: Yeah, I mean, that is something that for me, Fernanda, is...non-hierarchical is also deformalising, or reorganising conventional formalities. Conventional performance set-ups, and arrangements of people’s bodies, and whose bodies and voices. Particularly for me in Inchocate Buzz, of course it is a work of mine, which I am working with different people on, but within the context of the work itself, as it’s happening, I suppose I’m thinking about - I’m wanting to take, create different textured spaces. Which can, involving movement, sound, light, set, people...which I suppose, through participation, can re-organise that, for the participants. And I really enjoy being on the same, in the same space as the people that I’m with. So not kind of separate on a stage.
Person A: I’m just interested in that idea I guess, because in any collective space, you know, there are so many different inequalities and hierarchies and power relationships and all that, that are always in the space with us. And yeah, I’m interested in how this kind of work might, as you say, be a tool for reorganising that. Or like you were saying earlier, creating that collective space that allows other kinds of conversations to happen.
F: Yeah.
Person A: It doesn’t necessarily mean getting rid of those inequalities or power relationships, but it creates a space where other kinds of encounters or, you know?
F: Yep.
Person A: Things might open up.
F: And I think something that you’ve just said: conversations, for me, conversations in all of the ways that I work kind of feel like they create the spaces. And for me, I think maybe I said before, but they feel, for me they’re continuing in the space of the performance, those conversations with the people, the artists that I’m working with. Or I’m hopefully setting up new conversations with audiences.
(murmur of agreement)
Person A: Thank you.
Person B: And you also spoke about doing consent work, and I was just wondering, I just imagine, I didn’t see the performance, but its description seems very sort of immersive. And I imagine being taken in. And in a practical level, how do you get consent there, because it feels like it can break an atmosphere somehow?
F: To ask consent? For example or?
Person B: Yeah, or do you do that before the performance starts? Or is it something that you work into the performance?
F: Yeah, there were different ways. And this was carefully spoken about and treated right up and to and through the performances. So there was an email that went out to the people who had bought the tickets saying there was touch. So from that point there was different points of connection with the audience. There was someone on the door saying about that as people went in, and there was the choice to wear a wristband, and we all knew that that was a mark that people didn’t want to be touched. And then obviously you could take that off at any point as well, if you changed your mind. And also different artists were asking directly, as part of their practice and work. Because that’s also in different artists’ work who are in the environment. So very direct with that as well. Yeah, so, carefully…
Person B: Sounds thorough.
(laughter)
F: It’s been a really interesting process of working, thinking very broadly around consent and touch. And I’m pretty sure, I mean, it’s definitely an ongoing thing for me, that I’m interested in.
Person B: Thank you.
F: Any other thoughts or questions?
(a pause)
L: It doesn’t have to be a question, it could just be a comment, a word…
Heni: I was just very curious and interested in your work, how you both treat language and access language in a way. And, I think something that you said Leah, I’m just trying to remember. You were talking about language as a way of bringing people together because you can name things and share them. But you were then talking about this other side, but I couldn’t quite grasp this other…
Person C: That it can overformalise and can be destructive of experience, you said?
Heni: Yes.
L: Yeah.
Person C: And I thought that was a great phrase actually.
Heni: So I was curious about that, and in relation to what Fernanda, you were saying later about how you felt you access language differently to Leah. I was sort of feeling that as well with you. And I wondered if there’s a sort of other...if the sort of not finding the labeling or the naming so easily offers an access to other ways that you can be in communication and contact. It’s not really a question I’m just throwing that out there, you might want to answer.
L: That’s interesting. I think for me a really clear example of the ways in which language can do both those things is diagnosis.
(murmurs of agreement)
L: So for me, having a diagnosis for my chronic illness is incredibly important because, first of all it allows me access to care like medication within the systems that we’re in, and it also has allowed me to find other people who have similar experiences, and that’s been so incredibly important to me. The absolute best thing about being disabled is the community. And when you have that language you can share and connect. But, the other side of that is the risk of having that diagnosis enacted upon you. And being trapped in a box potentially, and being mistreated potentially because of it as well. So my illness is M.E., which is completely recognised by medicine now but had a long history of not being recognised at all. Basically, it would have been called hysteria. (Leah laughs) It would have been lumped in with a lot of things, with that word. And by doing that you can discredit somebody, you can enact all sorts of violence. So I guess it depends whose hands the language is in maybe?
(Murmurs of agreement)
L: Yeah. But what do you think, Fernanda about coming together or connecting through not language?
F: (laughing) I’m not sure I’ve got anything to say right now with that. I mean, we have been speaking about that quite a bit in our conversations. Um...I’m not sure, I don’t have anything clear right now, sorry.
L: It’s cus it’s about language!
(Fernanda & Leah laugh)
L: But you kind of distance yourself from language and I was thinking about that as you were guiding us through that movement work and it’s actually so integral. And you come up with these words that so perfectly...describe this nice sensation that you put us in. I mean, I really like it. Your voice is very soothing as well. And you just kind of - that’s not a script is it? I think it’s something that you’ve done a few times but it doesn’t seem to be the same words each time so it’s not...so you are accessing a language.
F: Yeah, I mean I’m actually really interested in this place that we’re all in right now, or maybe we’re not at all but, I suppose finding different access routes to language? And to...what is the word?
(laughter)
F: I suppose it’s like...is it sense making or something? (F laughs) I don’t know. It’s just like...how we create or find sense making in different situations, and I think...um...yeah. Maybe I’m...I don’t know. But I think it’s a really interesting - I was really interested, Heni, listening to what you were saying about - sorry I just don’t have any things to say! (F laughs)
Heni: Well, I was thinking exactly that, that actually there’s a sort of ability to use language as a guiding and as a tool and as lots of things, but that’s a different thing than having something to say. Not that I don’t think you have something to say! (F laughs) But I just think it’s about timing, in the moment, having something to say in the moment, that sometimes can feel quite inaccessible.
F: Yeah.
(murmurs of agreement)
(a pause)
L: Any other thoughts? Feelings? Noises?
(F & L laugh, murmurs)
Person D: I was just thinking it’s quite refreshing, I don’t know, being in a sort of space of not necessarily - not knowing, or being able to sort of name something or label something. I won’t talk about any particular manifesto, but we’re sort of bombarded generally with social media and the news by people who claim to know, and want to teach us or want us to do something. So it can also be a form of sort of resistance, to that. (murmurs of agreement). To take time. Or let things surface in a way that suggests that we don’t all know anything. (murmurs of agreement) Something like that.
(a pause)
F: Well maybe we could end there, if it feels right. Thank you so much.
(lots of thank yous)
Heni: It feels weird to jump up and do a sort of…
(laughter)
Heni: Because we’re not really in that place, but I can say thank you very much to Leah and Fernanda, on behalf of ID, and to say that more talking can happen in a very different situation - the bar is still open. (laughter) So there’s a downstairs place where you’re welcome to stay for a drink. And maybe in different contexts different kinds of language come out! (laughter) And thank you all for coming and next week we have, oh my god I’m having that brain fuzz! Karen Christopher and Mary Pattison, talking about the performance inside your head, which sounds brilliant. And then the week after that we have a panel of artists talking about anti-racist dance practices. So those are the last two in the series, and you’re very welcome to those. Thank you very much.
F: Thank you so much for inviting us.
L: Thank you.
(applause)