After watching Mel standing against the wall, I stood still and saw myself “watching” (or hearing, or feeling) at different stages in my life—from a child, past the present, to eventually laying face down.
Mel reflecting on Dianne’s solo descending to the floor:
An envelope arrives
Stopping to hear someone’s poem
Clouds moving sideways into shapes
Waiting to go down a slide in a park
Folding into a basket
The hands on the clock stop.
My writing was watching Mel connected to Robbie (wheelchair)—also starting from standing and descending until laying next to/under him.
Dianne writing as she witnesses Mel’s duet with Robbie:
A worker behind a plough
A child hiding from its father
A sea captain steering his way
A grieving woman fallen on the funeral carriage
A baby’s first sight of the world
An old man forgetting where he is
An animal looking for food
A lost child looking through a window
remembering a joke
wearing a coat
trying on wings
captive in the stocks
dragged through the bush
sunstruck and parched
listening to the earth.
Reflecting on the present as a continuing collaboration with the past
how time facilitates listening, knowing, and deepens the potential of the next moment
interrogating the moment—of how we move and watch—in each new place, with each new audience (witness, camera) in that future dance moment