CURIOUS & CLOSER

The following text is sung on an improvised descending scale.

I am close

So close

Closer than finger to nail

Closer than eye to lid

(Smack lips together)

Closer than lips

Performer speaks the rest of the text,

uses fingers to discover the two sides of the mouth and two sides of the hands.

Doubled up,

Two sides of the same

Knowing the other,

not wanting,

not needing

to be, be, be the other

Terrified inhale of breath

But without whom…

I am close

So close

Closer than singer to song

Closer than fire to flame

Closer than lips

I am a reversible chain,

Woven into the lacuna of

Intimate intertwining windings

Finger touching finger finding

Tissue turning tissue linings

Between the lips of things,

Between the lips of things,

Nuzzle impressions and depressions

Assemble protrusions and exclusions

I expand, condense, boundaries between

That which is seen and unseen

Known and unknown

Felt and unfelt

Heard and un…..

Performer inhales, exhales,

uses breath to build to a wolf howl

Am, in the middle of things,

No sum,

No ending

No solution,

No looking back

Ask not

What am I ? Who am I?

No No, No!

Wolf howl

How, how, how am I?

Event, agent?

Yes…No

“Do I contradict myself?

Very well then …. I contradict myself;

Performer approaches an audience member and asks them a direct question.

How am I?

Performer allows time for audience member to respond and vocally plays around with their response – encouraging the audience member to do the same.

I am large …. I contain multitudes… and am not contain’d between my hat and boots”

(From Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman, 1855)

But am simply

Closer

than

lung

is

to

air

.

.

.

(slow inhale/exhale of air)