Movement
10
provocation
In her Movement 9, Jenny painted a piece in the style of Binda’s energy lines and Element series
response
BINDA
Jenny made a painting in the Binda Elements Series style. I loved it! So rich with color, humor, references to the Helices movements. I was delighted by her take on the energy lines, the use of metalic paint and the scribing of sound waves as well. The title of the piece – inverse, converse, universe, verse was rich with so many idea to play with.
Given Jenny’s choice to work in a way that is not her familiar, I decided to do the same. With great trepidation I tried to write a song and find a melody for it. I felt like I was stepping onto an extremely unfamiliar terrain. It was dis-regulating and somewhat paralyzing.
I spent a week playing with those four words, looking up their meanings, asking Jenny more about what they meant for her and struggled to turn them into the lyrics of a song. Below is the result. I then found a piece of music to accompany my singing of them. It turned into a sort of spoken word thing with a sung refrain. The result was shared with Jenny, but will stay there!
Further thoughts from my notes during the process:
This song takes place in the mythical universe that is Helices. Jenny and Binda conversing in a spiral of provocation and response; creating an entwined myth, an imaginative pattern, a living being, a universe with tendrils unfurling and linking with Dale’s fire myths.
Ive never written a song. Inversely, this is the first song. It tries to get to the heart of the heart of the heart. The burning ember that is Helices. Dale’s fires providing a warm hearth for the hard work of heart work. Writing this song takes me through the swampy land of not knowing – the converse of knowing. It requires trust – which I am deepening into in this Helices world building.
Alongside that, I also felt moved to follow through on a project that I had talked to Jenny about multiple times. While we were on Little Gott last June, I had noticed the way that the sun sparkled on the water. I felt like the sun and sea were talking to me in a sort of morse code. The island had such incredible pneumacoustics! The sensory gates were wide open. This was a place where Sun sparkles could be translated into sounds we could hear. What if a fret was layed over the sun flashes and treated like notes? I slowed down the video and transcribed the resulting notes. (see below). Jenny was willing to try to play the result. which is also below.
This “song” is not mine, it just passed through me, and could only be fully expressed with the help of others. (Thank you Luca for trying to explain Bandcamp to me, and Jenny for playing and recording the sounds that the sea and the sun make when they talk.) ps. My scribing led to a very slow tempoed result. (Thank you for explaining tempo to me Jenny!) If I were to do it again, The conversation is faster, but still calm.)
SInce I am a visual creature, and Jenny’s painting held so much aliveness for me, I also decided to make a visual response to it. (I think it was also a way to cope with wading through the unfamiliar territory of song building).
My notes below get to some of what was pinging me in Jenny’s painting.
The phrases on the drawing are Jenny’s response to my invitation to name what those four words meant for her. In this drawing, the dash lines exist inside the body. They express the invisible energies that come from everywhere, all the time and prompt our connection to the imaginal space. In the drawing there is an energetic conversion from inside to outside through the mouth. The mouth is the portal for the resulting expression. Once again, the invisible is rendered visible but this time through words spoken.
