From the Newsletter:
We’ve released a new video from the Poems for Broken Screens performance. It’s one of the first of 24 that will be part of the film of the project. “a walk among the trees” was the second piece in the show at ATTPAC and features a tour de force solo performance by our new guest performer Kit Presley.
This piece came together in the studio after many practice runs over several months, and though the words remained the same, the soundscape Kit created was different every time. This perfectly exemplifies our approach to making live media with a balance of improvisation, precision, and varying dynamics.
The piece is one of several in this project that deal with our complex, often contradictory relationship with the natural world. It also furthers our exploration of the limits of language and verbal description. The first half of the piece is fairly easy to interpret, but then it veers into more difficult-to-define territory. In the script, the last lines are written as “…they found you / and you found ______” with the underline indicating where Kit is to improvise a sound instead of saying a word. In the end, the sound is a scream, which is what you see and hear in this final performance from June 3. Her vocal sounds are the best possible expression of the state she finds herself in. A word will not do.
An excerpt from the book of Poems for Broken Screens:
This piece follows directly from the opening, with Kit (KP) still on stage already making sounds. It’s continues the relationship theme but has a higher degree of abstraction. Some of what the words reference is open ended. In fact, in an early rehearsal I was asked “How is this supposed to be read? What is the tone?” I wasn’t sure, and needed it to hear it being read, which happens a lot. Sometimes things write themselves, and I’m as surprised by anyone. The best pieces are born in mystery. The work to fully realize them is intentional and often analytical but the rule is to maintain the mystery and to strip everything away that detracts from the tone, and amplify and hone the things that contribute to it. Sometimes it’s like subtractive sculpture where you sort of know where you want, but the final form is revealed through the process.
On its face the piece is about getting away from an unpleasant situation and into nature as a respite and escape from technology as well as from “profession or marriage or obsession“. But then it veers off into fill-in-the-blank-with-your-own-projections territory with “they found you… and you found ______” This piece extends the approach to sound from the previous one. With the line “you found _______” the fill in the blank is space for KP to improvise a vocal sound. At this point in the piece the volume is loud, layered, and distorted and her vocal noises are, again, the best possible expression of the state she finds herself in. A word will not do.
This piece is, other than the words in the script, fully improvised by KP. Like many others, it’s electronic jazz. Playing with the inadequacy or words and language while using language is one of the ongoing strategies in Therefore.
This piece was based around KP’s ability to layer diverse loops of improvised vocal sounds. I had seen her do this many times in the studio and it was a good fit for this piece, which was initially performed by someone else. It also provided KP with a solo moment, and she made the abstraction and open form of it work through her powerful delivery.
See more videos on our YouTube channel.