]wrist[
a delicate bandage a bone a twiggy little snap. oh slim white stab of a waist unwrapped. blackened sweet. a virgin chocolate bar crinkles her glittery skirt but such a disapproving purse. disapproving she twists her bittermelon mouth splitting shut. oh. oh oh no. white hot mirchi stops dead in her tracks. cut red. a rough and ready grab, a wolf whistling fist, an iron bangle tapping her curved rear.
(by Cynthia Lee)
I could see them as sudden “disruptions” of the live performance- almost like a re-focusing” on a detail, maybe interrupting a busy section. Or as silent digressions in the narrative- like detours, or parallels in a different location. Somehow I associate the zoom- a sudden shift in gaze, and with a sudden shift in dynamic, context or narrative- splattered throughout the production.
ReplyDeleteI see soft hands, a little limp, very specific and yet not derived from an identifiable "style." they move through niting (a Javanese gesture), caressing, sometimes a little animal like. choking wrist/neck. suddenly wild, clean us off, dirty girl. open up, flickering of fingers cup helplessly, clench in, fold together.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed how you "zoomed in" to a particular moment in my writing to expand upon and reimagine it, much like I zoomed in to a single word - "wrist" - in the original thumri on which my poem is based. The zoom-in also seemed consonant with the close-ups on body-parts that were used in the book. If you wanted to explore ways to integrate our two works in performance, here are a few ideas. We could cut between this wrist dance and projections of the text, or the text could be read aloud while the dance was projected. Alternately there could be a small TV onstage with this wrist dance (like a set piece) on it during a choreographed dance. Or perhaps we could project the dance on a sheer white screen, behind which the dancer speaks the text?
It was quite disturbing (in a good way) when the hands got really fast rubbing each other. It reminded me of the feeling of wanting to get rid of a bad feeling, to wipe it off your body. Gave me the association of a rape survivor.
ReplyDeleteWould be fun to play with different shapes, or types of things to be projected on. Instead of a box, there could be a front panel and two diagonal sides, or there could be three or four panels hanging at different distances from the audience. Different panels could have different things, like the text, or a still photograph, or the moving hands.
As Cyn mentioned at another point, Denise Uyehara's work could be an inspiration. She has had the projector on stage and actually moved it.