Yesterday afternoon I had the opportunity to carry out the video shoot/performance I have been planning – and it didn't rain!! It's the result of an idea I had when I was at St Andrew's on Corpus Christi day and have been developing in my head since. It even developed and changed while it was happening, and then I went back again this morning and videoed a bit more. So, quite organic – but that's ok, I think.
I think of it as my Corpus Christi Play. One of the main features of the pre-Reformation Corpus Christi festival were dramatised biblical stories (myths) that were performed each year. Often the plays would have been performed on the equivalent of carnival floats – but I wasn't that ambitious! Traditionally, each play was performed by the guild whose craft was appropriate to the action so that, for example, the shipwrights would portray the story of Noah building the Ark, and the roof-thatchers would perform the Nativity play with Jesus in the manger.
I wonder what my story is?
The main purpose of the procession was to display the Host – the consecrated bread that people believed 'was' the body of Jesus and the idea of Corpus Christi was to celebrate the wonder of this miracle, with all its gruesome implications. Medieval people would hang their best beds and bedcovers from their houses and stew their front doorsteps with herbs and flowers to greet the procession, and I took something from this idea as well. I was very curious to discover how it feels to strew, and to experience the smell as the strewn herbs were walked on.
I'm not into the bible, myself, and found that the snatches of myth, folklore and story that habitually swirl around in my head proved ample inspiration for my Play. Well, it's not a fully-formed entity yet, but I've got lots of material to work with now. That's the wonder of 21st century technology …. and big thanks to Trevor for patiently filming my feet from innumerable angles!!
So, I'm thinking wonder, fantasy, spectacle, the aroma of flowers and herbs, summer, the imaginative world, belief in the irrational, the macabre. I hope I can make something coherent of all this!
Meanwhile, I'm aware that the second issue of Kalender (bumper Corpus Christi number) is due out, well, as soon as I can manage it ….
