Body Amalgam
In this ongoing movement and performative writing practice, I trace the remnant trajectories of past influences in my movement pathways and in my kinesthetic memory. I scan my body for echoes of others: my grandfather’s nose, a collaborator’s spinal spiral, my mother’s tight right hip, my son’s reaching hand.
The current iteration is a solo work-in-progress, a first iteration of which was shared at Interplay 2019 as "Partnering, A Solo." Ultimately, it will take shape as a social practice project.
Bone Song
I remember this room.
I remember the feeling of the colour of this room.
Auburn, or orange. Brown. Yellow. Smoke.
I remember the weight of the smoke in this room: its density, its dance,
and its disappearance. Chased away by air.
I remember the feeling of dim, of dusk; a perpetual dim,
dimming.
This room does not fit into this room,
so bright and white,
so black and white.
But it is also here.
It is here and here and here too.
It is where I am. I carry it with me. My bone song.
I remember this room at least twenty times,
moments stacked into a place that is both gone to progress and also
always here.
At the top, swaying and leaning,
I remember this room the last time.
Him still, still dimming. His favourite spot, with a view of his lupines: purple and blooming. His silky knees and his stillness—over there, here, on the horizon of
this place I carry.
I have his nose, bent.
Or, I have an echo of his nose.
A bone song.
My body, compiled. Piece for piece,
piece by piece.
His nose, her smile, his furrow, here.
Skin memories, muscle memories, tracks of another him here.
Over here.
This body: a receptacle.
An amalgam.
A chorus.
Bone songs singing.
Excerpt of "Partnering: A Solo," presented at Interplay 2019: https://vimeo.com/649219252
With thanks to Deanna Peters/Mutable Subject and Kage