Resident Writer: Neal Pike
Over the month of November, Rawcus has the great pleasure of hosting (via the internet…) the brilliant writer/poet/performer/facilitator Neal Pike. We were connected with Neal through the Melbourne City of Literature, and will welcome into our rehearsal room (again, via the internet…,) our ensemble, and our current creative exploration.
So far Neal has joined us for an exploration of music and movement. He sent us songs to inspire movement, we explored the songs with our bodies, and Neal then wrote a poem based on that exploration. The poem is below:
Rawcus piece
youre uncomfortable without music /with music your body breathes easier your ears have
a noise to hone in on / I cant hear the music my ears are silent /silence is mostly dangerous/
/you are not silent /your arm is a tree stump / breathe become silence /become your
silent/what does your silence say as you look into a corridor /what do you see in that
corridor / can you hear the room shake what is the shaking doing to your self/I see arms
flicker like lights /you are all one /yet you move to different tempos of the same song /isn’t
what life is about though / you are arms moving/ moving become something become
yourself inside a space / you are now slow becoming something else /so slow you aren’t
really there anymore/yet and yet and yet/you are not the same shape you where thirty
seconds/you are not the same shape/you are something else/legs move like space or do
they move like water like something your not sure what your moving into/you are now a
line /one perfect line /all I hear is faint flickering / all I see is a line becoming something else
/we are capable of turning into things no matter what box we are in /I see a vague turn of
hips /my hips don’t move like that /they don’t move at all they definitely don’t lie/ you are
now a slow motion elvis presely /looking into the sky looking at the sky telling it I am doing
this because I want too/the world has become something else the world has become night
fever/insde a different world /swimming through a world of trees /you are now nothing but
drums nothing but drums /using drums out of human bone/all paused in imperfect sync/you
are everything inside your self right now as the music stops/you become silent yet moving .
Rawcus is currently creating a performative response to this poem which we will share with Neal and all of you. Stay tuned for updates!