Week 13 - Light by Jo Fong

It’s dark

There is an aperture of light in the corner and a sign to the left of the room that has the words, “no despair”.

It’s hidden, the sound is dark, eerie, I can’t see very much, there is shuffle of bodies, voices, entangled, dragging and vibrating, the light flickers and shakes as it passes by a foot, a throat.

Collapse, tapping, hair, and limbs 

It’s impossible to tell if they are enjoying this or are desperate, occasionally the lamps light up areas of the room, the walls and floor are black, 

black on black, black clothes, the air is black, white skin.

We are underground, the light is disappearing, the tone of the room feel pressured, inescapable, palms press together, grab and clasp, 

Tumble and occasional laughter, night wanking, raving and then rocking and enclosing together.

Darkness and Deafness collide in an attempt to communicate, eyes to eyes, silhouettes, shadows, hands violent, hands holding hands, insects scramble reaching the darkest corner, 

breathing heavily in held stillness.

Lights on

Light has never been a major focus of my making, the most recent makes have been about presence, people being open, perhaps sharing some truths, the light has been open, buoyant, warm for the last 10 years. Anything moody or mysterious has given me the feeling this is an un-truth or playing with the audience, tricking them. 

Gwyn, Anna and I set about a study. 

We were in a black box theatre space in Pontypridd’s YMa, when we first walked in it felt gloomy, melancholic… we adjusted what we could of the lights to make it less sad using some of the overhead theatrical lights in the rig. We decided to used blackout as a backdrop punctuating the space with small lamps from phones that were just centimetres away from the body. We can't see everything, parts of the dance or the full story of the relationship and movement are hidden and it's intriguing. The mind starts to fill the gaps, as humans we are attracted to movement and light, the attention is focused, we are drawn to the unfolding of the images, bodies in motion, inventing our own stories through the gestures of a hand or grasp, we cannot help to invent meaning.

It was instant, a whole world was created, it had moods and modes, secrecy, privacy and through the eyes of an audience, it opened up our senses and we sometimes feel in it or witness. What does darkness do? How in the north people and winter embrace the low light, just adding in candles or low lamps, it soothes, releases us and changes our state of being. How darkness can be both liberating or unnerving.

Darkness and Deafness is a thing, Anna tells us it's common for D/deaf people to ask for more light, “it's the kind of alertness of light that doesn't help on a date”, says Anna. Gwyn and Anna tried out some improvisations trying to capture the essence of misunderstanding and connecting. It felt very live, real, more than movement, a warm urgency to communicate.

I’m interested in how light makes us feel, gentle light can be warm, soothing or sleepy or sad. Overhead office lights is the unrelaxed version of light, “efficient”, “on target”, ready to “make that deal”. I think I should talk to some light designers, or artists who work in light, understand what their feel is, their priorities or how they go about interpretation of an idea. I guess lighting designers are often serving someone else’s vision, how would an equal collaboration with a light designer go?

dark, very very dark,

profiles 

three bodies holding tapping tap, tap, 

the light on the floor, stillness, moving light feet feet bodies

 backs on back, surrender yourself, shine, a light on yourself, trust

Text was part of this week's agenda, it felt like an add on as the work Gwyn and Anna are pursuing is attempting to be accessible, as in movement rather than text or voice. We attempted some audio description ways in, Anna’s very clipped short phrases seem to describe the texture and rhythm of the movement and relationship. It's a kind of poetry. 

Audio description is an art in itself, there are indeed things a person wants or needs to know but also room for creativity especially where dance is concerned, it's not necessarily about the movement itself but what it does and in this case, there are gaps, what we visually can’t see is kinda the point.

Thanks to our guests who came in on to our open studio and dove straight in with the intimacy of all this. Certainly there is a difference between what we do and how it is interpreted and then shine a light on it and we're on a whole new gig!