The bare bones of a reaction to holy hiatus II
It seems more unknown even than the first time, because
something became known but that just thickens the plot.
I roll out lining paper under the screen. To draw on? To
write on? I tried to draw write what I felt, it didn’t look pretty but it was
chest felt as I did it. Then others decided they would write and draw on
it….wonderful. I felt inspired by their being moved to do so.
The audience was different. Some did come to participate in
prayer or meditation
The sounds from last year being played surprised me – my
breath, I heard it. A lot of the time I found I was listening carefully –
especially when I was still. The
cctv video of last year played and at
times I turned towards the screen and saw that I was in synchrony.
I chose to use improvisation four times. My repetitive
movements fell away and it was deep movement prayer that occurred. Quite
astonishing, but thorough, no doubt about that.
The first was something I can only call a god prayer. I lay
face down, spread, prostrate on the floor. Eventual slow curling uncurling,
curved reaching movements emerged. It was a calling out; it was an
acknowledgement. How do I put this into language? I feel it deep within:
emotional but also an abstract thinking. Was it “arglwydd, dyma fi”?
Another prayer was for someone. At Quaker meeting I suppose
we would call it holding them in the light. But it was also a want to be with
them, to be close, but not as strong as the words “I want you”.
Then another about confusion hurt and wondering /seeking how
to reach out again; were things so changed that my reaching out would be
internal, an opening of the heart, a forgiveness all round?
This is not strictly a performance – it is real, I could
only do this for 6 hours stripped away to being – I do note times where a
surface of performace slides in, then out. The audience or possibility of
audience means I have to do it. Even working with Lou, my collaborator was
probably not enough to have made it happen. A public commitment.
When Lou began to sing with the recording of her last year’s
voice I felt that the two of us were really starting to work together (but that
implies a some sort of not quite really working together earlier). My hands had
become very important as I moved; at one point I stood arms down slightly
stretched out, palms forward – I looked up, Lou was doing the same.
The very end had us both sitting, Lou singing from her seat,
this seemed unusual, she usually stands. My movements became much reduced yet
fluid, the room was becoming darker. It was a perfectly unplanned end.
