BOW: post from the field #6: October 26, 2015
| from St. John’s, unraveling after the performance
Rolling down the hill to the harbour became a meditation for me. One task in our performance score was to roll along the sidewalk of Prescott Street, while holding a wine glass filled with water. This was the option I solely focussed upon for the one and a half hours it took us to travel from hilltop to harbour fence. Through three intersections of increasingly heavy traffic, past little girls in windows, passersby, horn honkers, an old man painting his stoop, and an amazed, emotional audience I listened for the waters of the past. I saw in constant rotation: sky, wineglass, fellow dancers, cement, sky, wineglass, fellow dancers, cement, repeat.
Other options in the score included: rolling vertically along the buildings, drawing with sidewalk chalk, balancing a wineglass on your head, dancing in any way you wish, sitting out/observing, carrying a jug to refill the wine glasses. A cast of St. John’s dancers and actors joined us as well as: Lois who brought her ongoing String Art practice, the St. John’s Vocal Exploration Choir who gargle-sang, protected our actions and uttered experimentally, nine-year old Benjamin who traced our bodies with sidewalk chalk and dancers Elaine and Tracy who lead the way with blue lengths of silk rising and falling in the wind. I can’t think of a better mob with whom to roll along a river’s ghost to the ocean. Thank-you to the St. John’s crew; we could not done this without you.