Tra^erse emerged out of the work of two groups of artists separated by ocean and continents but working with a common thread. Five artists from the UK and five from Japan worked initially in their own countries then came together in Japan to devise a new work of dance, music, installation, performance and painting a work drawn together out of the snapshots of pieces that they had created prior to their meeting.
Once in Japan the dancers, musicians and artists worked together for two weeks shaping and re-shaping the parts so that the pieces could sit together both visually and energetically, they balanced the parts across the space and in the round. They added new dances, new music, new forms, new painting and were inspired by each other, their cultures and the land as the completed work emerged.
‘I stand threaded together. I stand tied up, tied down, eyes inward, ears piercing the far corners of the place sensing its edges, sensing the spaces between here and there. I stand still. I stand still and take my shape. I stand seeing around me with my eyes shut, I am all eyes, all ears. There are others around me. I hear them. I call to them.
LIE ME DOWN
I am taken in hand and laid down upon the earth. I fill this new shape, tied tight into myself as I pour onto the earth slipping into the spaces that open up under and to each side of me. There is movement nearby. I hear them. I call to them.
SIT ME UP
Will they come? I am insistent without expectation. I call to them.
They come. I am then L shaped. I call to them.
They come again, the knife-edge of my insistence cuts through their work and they leave it to respond to my call. I am unwound I shed the thread into a pool and move away.
The thread wound itself around her toe
Passed up the back of her left leg
Up the undulations of her spine
Over her shoulder and around her neck it would
Slowly creeping inside her ear
It whispered to her
Left its colour on her lobe
Unwound itself
Quietly crept away
Leaving the scent of something’
Collaboration with artists, musicians and dancers from UK and Japan. Performances in Oxford and Fukuoka Prefecture Japan.
Roly Carline, Masumi Goto, Melissa Holding, Manizia Kajiwara, Hilary Kneale, Cecilia Macfarlane, Bruce Tetlow, Ayako Oho, Inuzuka Takuichiro, Yoichi Usami supported by the English and Japanese dancers of Wings.
City
Council