Photograph by Ken Taylor
I’m hoping there’s a picture here for you to see, as I’m trying to get the hang of adding pictures in this new a-n website…..After a meeting with my collaborators and separate discussions of
my singing voice in relation to my work, I decided to have mostly recorded sound (voice and sound of waves) in my recent work for the Asylum Chapel, Peckham, South London, entitled The Ten Commandments of the Asylum Chapel. At the end, I stepped forwards towards the audience and sang for a short time. I wanted a contrast between the recorded and the live sound, between the past and the live present. The effect is very different and seemed to work well. While I was standing waiting to sing the live part, the setting sun illuminated an area around my head, a development of which I was unaware at the time. When I saw videos and still photographs of this later, I realised that this chance event should be an encouragement to me to allow my performances to be receptive to developments in the site and surroundings which could interact with my performance. Of course sometimes these really are a disruption and would wreck what I am doing, for example a fire alarm going off in the middle of a song. Other times, these chance occurrences could enhance the performance and, I suppose, are part of live art. I had realised this before, but not to the extent that a chance event could really be the highlight (literally in this case) of the performance.
The reception I got from the audience and their comments were encouraging and helpful, as were the comments from the other artists and the curator after the rehearsal. After this I decided that live performance is important to my work, and I was not going to give it up, but to decide when and where a live element would be appropriate to the work/commission very carefully. I also found it useful to present work as part of a curated programme over the course of an evening, which allowed my work to complement and/or be in dialogue with other artists’ works. In addition, I also liked the chance to work on my own away from the collaborative a-n project. It gave me a bit more of a perspective on the a-n project, which I think I was in danger of losing to a degree. I suppose the lesson of this is that it’s useful to collaborate in making work, but it’s also important to do work as an individual, which can then be in dialogue with the work of others, who also made their work as individuals. The interaction of the works can then be facilitated by the curator, so thanks to Ed Ball who curated the evening’s programme of performances at the Asylum Chapel on July 3rd.
Yesterday I worked on my performance of the song I composed to sing in the hollow Yew Tree at Crowhurst. Lucy thought the song was powerful and has given me some advice on how to make the delivery more technically sound and delivered with more emotion. The key, as always is loads of breath and support from the lower abdomen and pelvic floor, and a relaxed jaw…and don’t be afraid of pauses to allow the audience to take in what they hear and respond to it. More soon.
