listen
sonic maps
sound of circles
Produced by musician Liz Knowles, the sound of circles is a podcast series of “circular” reflections, gestures, sounds, and landscapes explored through the migration dance film project. These sonic maps spiral up through music, movement and filmmaking — weaving together Liz’s reflections on the films and her conversations with choreographer Sandy Silva and director Marlene Millar. In each episode, we present these resonances of circular motion — a journey of emergence.
music/sound design — excerpts of fiddle sounds, fiddle music and ambient sounds by Liz Knowles.
migration dance films — audio excerpts provided with permission by Migration Dance Film Productions.
audio post-production — Les Studios Bakery
1 – sound of circles
Musician Liz Knowles introduces sound of circles, a nine part cycle of reflections on the migration dance films.
2 – container for curiosity
Art can be a container for our curiosity. Liz discusses those creative vessels with the migration dance film creators, Sandy Silva and Marlene Millar.poems
of navigation
of
navigation
Together,
hush standing,
seaward facing
with palms inward yet expectant,
they are the paths to the corrosion, cleaves
that each rhythm maker has come to heal
in an act of unity.
Dance the union
of
the winds.
The spray has
soft hooks:
the ocean - the muscles an element
of deep dark and cliffs mocking
the innocents light.
Nothing of rock determines ways, only
the roof of clouds
dreamt in the run can choke the reality
of their journey.
Dance the touch
of
water.
In the gloom the chaos unravels, and the dark speaks: Listen to the dark
the voices
of ancestors
whisper up
The weaves of crevice are mouths to pasts, the arteries to our tomorrows. Dance the union of ancestor to the unborn.
Is the horizon
waiting?
We will know
soon enough.
Dance
the distance
– close
the mystery.
Jim Mackintosh
pilgrimage
pilgrimage
In movement,
in genuflection of curved air
they remember
the bodies of children,
closed eyes lit by notes
of lost song
curved silent
reflection
curve again -
into vaulted space, shadows dance across
trappings of failed religions, question
bleached impressions of icons - remnants
of a first forgiveness,
a last confession,
the second and last coming defined in
turned tone
genuflection
turn again -
into the morning where
ash road patterns
pass windmills brooding, like vacant crosses
on the Appian Way but they dance forward
through a sea of corn, centurion stalk-spears
threatening,
questioning
where do you take
your rhythms?
which of you
is the leader?
what truths
do you hope to find?
The sun with all its power to gift life, deny days
or quicken death, blesses motion repeated
by the dancers, arouses the grain husk wind
to lift dust to
camouflage their hearts.
Keepers of movement -
be our futures,
remember us,
embrace our past of
danced rhythmic
inquisition
dance again -
at the rise of the moon to guide feet
on journeys deemed impossible in sun’s glare
where rhythm must be light for footsteps,
in darkness to outline gestures, the fusion
of phosphorous and vaulted moon.
Dancers understand steps
they choose,
know where paths will
take them,
to where journeys
demand breath, poise,
& silent space at its solemn velvet edge, to where feet stop memories dissolving one by one, eyes open, finding lost song, turning our pasts, one by one
turn again
dancers
&
return to the path
for in tomorrow’s trinity,
silent reflection,
tone genuflection,
rhythmic inquisition
will return in movement
again
Jim Mackintosh