The
Wave. Ink on paper. Unique. Dimensions variable. 2016
The
Wave. Performace: poetry, voice, sound, singing bowls.
During the two nights, November 10
and 11, 2017, I performed a sound poem ‘The Wave’ at L'Abri in Geneva. The
poetry has been inspired by the history of the space itself. Having been built
as a WWI bunker, with its thick concrete walls designed to temporarily host and
preserve life, it leaves an impression of the atmosphere of darkness,
separation from the world, but at the same time of a womb-like safety.
The poem works with the emergence of
language through sound, dwelling on sonic qualities of the words, the
juxtaposition between the vowels and consonants, and their interplay. The Wave
starts as a legible flow of narrative, turning into an invocation and exploding
in a free-flowing stream of vocalised sounds.
Entering L’Abri space I feel I am
entering a Egyptian tomb, in which life can be preserved and transformed …
through sound. Certain themes within the poem could not be avoided, they came
through me, as the space intended: war and peace as mental conditions, human and
planetary time, language and its history. I have realised once again that it is
impossible to be detached from what the space dictates, the only way is to work
with it and to sing it. Drawing The Wave serves a graphic score to the
performance and a visual interpretation of the idea of continuous sound waves
in space. The visual and sound installation was created by Analema Group.
