GestureLab 4 __ test
SOUNDING-OUT EFFORT
The lab Sounding-Out Effort is proposed as a space to imagine a corporeal engagement with another material surface as and through sound and listen to the embodied response, which the sound may invite.
Gesture Lab 4 SOUNDING OUT EFFORT (test)
Moving Image Studio RCA, London, 2020.
Image: artist own.
Different working gestures transcribed as Laban Efforts of Action Drive (Wring, Press, Flick, Dab, Glide, Float, Punch and Slash)
Different Effort ‘quality’ and ‘emotional content’ of specific movements.
The pool cleaner, using an overly protracted pole to wipe the bottom of the pool from above, performs the unbound movement, with a sustained speed, light pressure and direct in his arm action. His extended pole-arm ‘glides’ gently across in the air. The hairdresser ‘slashes’ and ‘flicks’ the hair with his hand-scissors. The baker, kneading the dough, is applying heavy direct action, and her movement is bound. She ‘presses’ the dough with sustained gesture, ‘wrings’ it indirectly or in multiple directions and then ‘punches’ it suddenly. Effort types combine and intertwine in working motions.
Different ways of voicing these particular actions.
Some of the soundings were drawn from memory of heard and experienced grunts and voicing that accompany stronger efforts. For more subtle gestures we imagined sounds. What is the slashing or gliding quality in the voice?