Colin & Simon

before we begin

meetings

We met at The Place yesterday, and then immediately after at The Place again. First we talked about this project, and then we realised that in talking about it the project was becoming, or had started. We didn’t know if we should be paying more attention to what it was that we were saying. Things seem to take on importance beyond what they would ordinarily. In preparing for the second meeting, it was clear that the first meeting was what we needed to replicate, or participate in as part of the second. If only the others (present at the second meeting) could have sampled the first.

Colin talked about questions of choice. How do we choose to be seen? What are the limits of comfort … in being seen, and in looking? He mentioned the word ‘obscenity’, and something about seeing too much … “an orgy of seeing”.

Later, John Ashford said of Colin: “he stands there, being the archetype”. I felt envious of his archetypical status. But then Colin said that when we first met (in London in 2007) he “fell in love with my mind”. Damn, it would appear my chances of someone falling in love with my body are rapidly diminishing.

i don't know what to say

Dear Colin

It’s true. I don’t know what to say.

I was fascinated by the short wave ‘numbers station’. Where is it from? Can we stream them live?

I don’t know what we are saying either.

To each other.

I am worried about our differences, the uncertainty of it all, the time pressure …

When making projects, to whom am I responsible? By what means can I be (or am I) responsible to someone I hardly know? (let alone those I’ve never met before)

How might the emergence of this worldly relationship (between you and me) be of interest to others?

Stay warm.

Simon

like

Dear Colin

Here is a list of some things that I quite like:

• uncertainty
• warmth
• performance that folds dance into the background
• not knowing
• silence
• darkness
• friendship
• making granola
• Elizabeth
• moving and being moved
• vulnerability
• 1980s music (I can’t help it)
• the blues
• the way English people say, “to be fair” (as if they aren’t normally)

Warm regards

Simon

a mother's advice

Dear Colin

I am very interested in the idea of entering before we get there, before we arrive on stage. Questions of the nature, tone, ‘content’ of this (these?) entrance(s) are quite exciting.

How to clear the space before we arrive? How might this absence/presence be important or contribute to the emergence of a form-content that we are interested in?

Middle names are good. They remind me of being at primary school and how knowing someone’s middle name was the critical indicator of how close a friend they were.

My mother always told me, “Simon, never walk onto a stage nude with a black man. You’ll always pale in comparison.”

What you write here is exciting: “What if we merge, overlap and disappear into each other. Complete each others actions, thoughts and expressions.”

This is what I was thinking some of the video footage might do …

But, at the same time, what might such an investigation (of mergence, overlapping, (dis)appearance) evoke? How might it be read? (These questions are premature).

What I read in your writing is something about making transparent the emergence of a friendship. Or a collaboration? The getting to know built into actions on stage (and off).

This is fecund.

Much care from here in Australia

Simon

P.S. I had an image of our clothes, suspended in wire (full size, empty voodoo dolls of ourselves), that we are able to ‘dance into’ prior to the work’s real beginning

Perhaps

Simon

Here are some thoughts that attempt to engage, respond and dialogue with your initial ideas. 

Commenting from the wings

I wonder if things about us could somehow arrive in the space before we do. Or perhaps we could litter the stage with belongings e.g. cast off our clothes. Maybe we could throw or leave our voices in the space and discard our fears, hopes and desires. What if we project our shadows stalking into the space. We could as you’ve mentioned also project the audience gaze. Could we prepare the space with appearances of disembodied identities. Maybe we can amplify and exhaust these appearances so they become extreme, even obscene until there’s nothing left to see? Perhaps we can clear the space to then enter and begin.

Middle names

What if we arrive naked! 

Perhaps the performance could offer an occasion for us to get to know each other as well as develop and explore the notion of  ‘chemistry’.

What if we merge, overlap and disappear into each other. Complete each others actions, thoughts and expressions. We could play with anticipations, pauses, surprises and relief.

Colin

overwhelming

Dear Colin

I suspect this is all pretty overwhelming. I hope not disastrously so. I’ve been thinking about responsibility in viewing. In what it is like to be watched on stage, and what it is that we do to be watched. I feel the paradox acutely - of enjoying being seen, whilst not wanting to turn what I do into a spectacle… to resist the virtuosic.

How quiet might we be whilst maintaining a provocative form-content?

What might we say to push the viewing into the foreground?

The following posts might best be viewed from the earliest first. But, you also might like to just peruse their randomness … a collection of images, writings, often appallingly specific given I don’t even know your middle name.

I also suspect they might not make a lot of sense … but if nothing else just laugh at my terrible drawings.

Simon.