claudia wittmann and doug tielli are in residency December 2009 and January 2010 thank you Scott, thank you Doug |
340 Dufferin Street, Queen and Dufferin
Street |
i learned that i need to know where i am starting from in order to keep my integrity in a duet; i need to observe every little decision i take in order to be conscious of where i am going. i have learned that i don't like to do something "nice" just for the sake of doing it for the audience - this makes me very angry. i learned that it is difficult to really be present with other people, to reach this point where i see them as masses of beauty, suffering, joy, and spirit, separate from me, yet here. i have learned that i don't know the difference between channeling and surrendering to my own sexual energy. i have learned that one of my performance strategies is to fragment myself into different energies and find the one that has something to say. i wonder whether that was a way to hide and to compromise presence. i have seen again that it is possible to stay present if i start to look at the audience and speak. i have seen the desire to exchange with them about my journey, to invite them in the journey, ask them what they see. i have learned that accepting my body helps me be "present". i have learned that dividing myself in two makes me feel safer. i have learned that i am fed by my own sounds when they come through a monitor or amplifier. i have learned that structure is not enough as a score for me. i have learned that i need to adress the filters that i feel between me and the audience.
report by Claudia for January 28, 2010
| Doug and i performed at the same time, each starting from something we had done in the past weeks of the residency. we decided not to control where this would lead us and not to intentionally find a meeting point. Doug went to the piano and i put two chairs in the "performing" area. the chairs were facing each other. i plugged my microphone in and i started to feel very conscious of this little diverging fight i see in my head between my right and my left side (i am doing this fight right now!). i went on a journey to find some reconciliation between these two energies, while sighing with sound. i found myself surrendering to the breaths that were inside me and were coming out as i was exhaling. my voice was slowly getting lower. it was a bit like channeling energy from the outside world. in the middle of this and energetically fed by my own sounds coming through the monitor, i went towards the chairs and walked around, on my feet or knees. sometimes i was leaning on the chairs and then, i could feel my sexual energy coming through my breath. i felt i could surrender more or less to this energy. it was very fluid. at some point, i felt an ending and i stopped near the monitor. feedback between the microphone and the monitor started to happen, on my right side. it was a bit like this unpleasant breath i keep on my right side and that makes me suffer and i suddenly started to hope for some separation, but my mind started to tell me that this would take too much time. i rubbed my body with the microphone. i went to sit on one of the chairs. i crawled on my fourrs. Lo put a blanket on me. i sat again. Lo joined me. she rubbed herself with the microphone. i remember her combing her hair. she gave me the mic back. i ended. i remember vaguely what Doug was playing during the performance. he stayed on the piano. i remember that my body was taking in the music and my movements were influenced by the music. i remember that he was breathing in his mouthpiece a lot, doubling my sighing. |
writings by Angela Rawlings during and after the performances (January 14 and 21)
reports by Claudia, January 7, 14, 21, 2010
| week 4: i felt very self-critical after the show and did not want to write. now, something tells me that i should confront the filter of "underweight" in myself and with my audiences to avoid the risk of creating a bubble of something around me. and i am more and more aware that i don't want to "perform" for the audience. i want something else. i also need to report that there was something about images disappearing or not disappearing and not transforming that night......... is this about me, about the space? | week 5: yes. i did a solo and Doug did a solo in response to my work. i sat on a chair, looking at each person in the audience, present with the memory of our first encounter. the two men did not look at me. and then, i fell on my knees, relieved from the weight of being underweight. i walked on my knees, listened to what my two sweaters, which were sitting on other chairs, had to say. did the first say "you are inside out?". the second said "something has to leave". i felt present with all me and the audience. yes. | week 6: hmmm. Doug did a solo on his trombone, sitting on a chair. i saw the trombone as a part of his body. i saw it as somebody to talk to, to be comforted by, to fight with, somebody who is here when you are lonely. to me, Doug appeared simultaneously vulnerably open to be seen and hidden behind the sounds and his instrument. there was something that needed to be contained. i got up and walked around the chair, feeling the energy that was still there and making a boundary around it with my walking. i went into my left shoulder and i felt comforted by the ways i could move it towards my ear and then, i started to feel that i could divide myself in two, as if "claudia + instrument" and i felt safe. i was moving and i would say "two" when i felt like two entities and "one" when i felt like one entity. here, i was bringing my own on the surface vulnerability around safety and my experience of Doug's solo together. i learned that being more than one is not necessarily threatening. |
reports by Claudia, December 2009:
| week 1: i feel very tired to start with and i need to approach Doug slowly. i become an old man from Switzerland and i become a bird, between a seagull and a crow. i also touch one of Doug's foot and other body parts of his as i am looking for "humanness". | week 2: we go on a score of anti-performance. we ask our 2 audience members to time 4-minute solos. i follow my body and discover a bunch of strategies. i sing my "dear bear" song while playing this instrument i have no skills for and which is called piano. | week 3: we ask our 4 audience members to intuitively time 5-minute sets (2 solos, one duet and one "inbetween nothing" set). i use the structure as a score and i realize that it is not sufficient to generate anti-performance in me. i feel uncomfortably female. |