Day 15. During The week of Summer Dance the Herbert Series has been underway at the Herbert Art Gallery. A group of artists, curated by Florence Peake gathered there to show their work, these were all practitioners who include their own body within their work; Chris Crickmay, Sylvia Hallett and Eva Karzag offered a durational work, Promenade 2, Jessica Lerner inhabited her installation, The Conception Vessel and Doran George showed two performance works J’Adobe (Preparation) and Stalemate. Florence Peake and Polly Hudson created The Lanchester Project, an installation incorporating their own body movement with both video projection and drawings in real-time. Members of the faculty; Natalie Garrett and Amy Voris, with Christian Kipp and Nikki Pollard produced Enter Inhabit Leave at Junction 5 of the ring road, while Joe Moran, Kayte Coe and Charlie Morrisey will offer solo performances during the festival. All of this has been happening in conjunction with the four Making Space residencies and twice daily workshops led by a series of internationally renowned movement practitioners.
I have found it a very rich experience to be researching and creating new work within this broad umbrella of body based creative practice. From my perspective as artist in residence, the umbrella has provided the opportunity for Summer Dance participants to witness the creative process through my open studio times and allowed me to experiment with different actions and receive useful feedback both physical and verbal, which is particularly helpful as I usually devise works without the interface with the public being included.
Day 16. For the time I was available to the public today, I decided to experiment with a walk I have been devising, through the city with the group who gathered. I planned to mark the pathway under the streets, of the hidden city river, with pure water from the source of my home river, collected some time ago and that I had stored in a ten litre plastic container. Gian Paolo Cottino, artist and Summer Dance installation manager, taped the container to my back and across my chest, like a rucksack, using white gaffer tape and secured a tube inside the container to allow a continuous gravitational flow of water through it from the bottom of the tank, which I could then control with my fingers. The group gathered and we walked down to the site of the old Gosford Gate where the river emerges from the city culverts.
After spending a few moments watching the emerging river, we set off in the opposite direction to its underground flow. The tank and tube emitting a constant slow flow over the paths and roadways mirroring the underground river. As I got further into town, passing Meadow Pool, now a bus station, and through the back of Palmer Lane, I had to negotiate large buildings which forced me to divert away from the river path, I skirted the walls and edges of the buildings, remaining as physically close to the true course of the river as possible. I passed beside bus queues and busy shoppers, stopping and renegotiating my direction when faced with a brick wall or shop window.
I had not taken in the vision of my whole before I had left, but my choice of brown trousers and walking boots in combination with an unrecognisable contraption on my back emitting an unknown liquid onto the streets caused a bit of a stir! I must have looked somehow threatening! I was almost at the end of the walk across the city, when, several policemen who arrived in cars with lights flashing to 'apprehended' me! A number of fearful residents, unsure of my intention, had contacted the constabulary!
I have to say, that the police, quickly understood, that although I may have unwittingly looked as mortally threatening as a suicide bomber, that I was in fact an artist with a tank full of spring water on my back. They didn’t prevent me from reaching my goal of the small section of open river at the entrance to the Ikea multi-story car park, but one of the officers walked beside me and others followed by car. I completed the ritual walk with a police escort and the group. When we arrived at the open river I allowed the remaining spring water in the tank to pour into the river below. We all stood a while and watched the body of water disappear under the city.
When I had finished, I was asked to remove the empty tank at the request of the police, so that I didn’t cause any further public consternation on the return journey! It was suggested that should I repeat the action, I contact them first.
Chatting about the work afterwards, some of the members of the group, students of the university, said that they had been unaware of the existence of the river, even though they passed by close to it often! Now, I imagine, it will be etched into their consciousness!
It was also suggested by Gian Paolo, that next time I might consider what the possible perceived meanings of my clothing might be, though not necessarily change the choice! Or, if I did want to be inconspicuous, perhaps I should wear a flowery dress and wobbly antennae!