research dump.......

" The light was born, the light has died
I surrender myself to the night "

performance project
by ama tomberli, vida vojić, chihiro araki, hannah froese

loosely based on the themes of darkness, cyclical timelines, crossroads, magical practices, pre industrial living, seasonal ceremonies, pagan heritage, climate grief, folklore legends, ritual dances, sacred instruments, drought, the tarantula....

By exploring ancient ceremonial practices such as dancing, chanting and drumming, we strive to resurrect the power of magic in its contemporary form (art), inviting the audience to actively participate, question, dialogue and dream. It is through these celebratory practices that we begin to reestablish a connection to life by emphasising the seasons of nature and cyclical time. The title "The Longest Night" may refer to the winter solstice, as well as “the dark ages”. It may suggest that despite present darkness, there will always be a return of light. The darkness is both the end and the beginning. The darkness is a landscape where boundaries are obscured and our reality breaks down - if here, we overcome our fears, we can let our dreams guide the way forward and allow new imagination to spring forth. This is not the end of the world - it is the edge of the world.

Seasonal ceremonies help us usher in the nature of change. Beyond the earth’s yearly orbit around the sun, multiple cycles occur concurrently, whether on a personal level in one’s own life, or in the planetary movements of the heavens. The cycle of the Yugas is a 26,000 year cycle - which Plato referred to as “The Great Year” - and it is calculated by measuring the tilt of the earth’s axis passing through the different signs of the zodiacs - creating extended periods of golden ages, silver ages and dark ages etc. According to this timemap - which can be found in both ancient Egyptian, ancient Greek, Hindu and Mayan cosmology, we are currently in the dark ages, more or less at the bottom of the abyss, but hence also experiencing a turning point - a “return of light”.

After an era of deconstructionist postmodernism, secularism and now “post truth” - we find ourselves at the threshold of a new reality. Many obsolete and cruel values have been called out and challenged, yet nihilism has made us scared to believe in anything, making evident that it is harder to say what you are for than what you are against, just like it is easier to destroy than to build. Yet if the existing world order is on an apparent decline, we need to look elsewhere for answers, and there are many unheard peoples, beings and perspectives. In the night, we open ourselves up and listen to the infinite beyond - other realms, energies and timelines. Suppressing the sense of sight, also known as the “possessive sense”, we explore the felt realm of sonic vibration and physical movement, and allow the vision to emerge from the mystery. Rather than depicting and commenting on the “effect” of current systems, we desire to explore the “cause” of current systems, as this suggests a more forward motion and dynamic relation to reality, where, rather than being victims of reality, we dance with it and transform it. The night is dream time - and even though we may feel lost, we remind ourselves of the aboriginal saying “those who lose their dreaming, are lost”. We have not lost our dreaming, and we have opened the gate to all wisdom and beauty that can be found in ancient myths and folklore. Rather than fearing the future and retreating into nostalgia, we look to the past to find ancestral knowledge, asking the 2 part question “where do we come from, and where are we going?”

who we are

Chihiro Araki
Dancer, vocal artist, performance artist.

Hannah Froese
Dancer and choreographer.

"our dreams are your dreams"

"It took so long for the Universe to dream of this place.

I thank the earth every day for making me transgender, because it makes me like an animal, beyond the providence of Christians and patriarchies. I live on the outskirts of society, and I have become feral and intuitive.

Circles of mothers, please usher in an era of profoundly feminine governance. Let a circle expand across the world, through governments and businesses and homes and laboratories and prisons and schools.

Because I don’t want your future. I hope when I die, that I never return to your world. I will go where the trees go, I will go where the wind goes, where the birds go, I will leave you all to enjoy the world that you are creating for your children.

I want then to be a dead body at the bottom of the lake. Gut me with sticks and stuff my body full of lavender crystals. I want my spirit to jump out of me, refracting in the crazy water. I will go with all my friends, the Wild Life."

from "Swanlights" by Anthony (Anohni) Johnson, 2010

A green lion consuming the Sun is a common alchemical image. The symbol is a metaphor for aqua regia (the green lion) consuming matter (the Sun), gold.

(could also be thought of as night realm consciousness dissolving our illusions of day time consciousness - that which hides in plain sight, hides as truth. the night comes to obscures these truths, makes us enter into fluid spaces)

Lucia celebrations represent one of the foremost cultural traditions in Sweden, with their clear reference to life in the peasant communities of old: darkness and light, cold and warmth. Lucia is an ancient figure with an abiding role as a bearer of light in the dark Swedish winters

The spider has syncretically been associated with the goddess Neith of Ancient Egypt in her aspect as spinner and weaver of destiny.

Spiders are associated with creation myths because they seem to weave their own artistic worlds. Philosophers often use the spider's web as a metaphor or analogy, and today terms such as the Internet or World Wide Web evoke the inter-connectivity of a spider web.

Taranta is the spider, per se harmless, which with its poison troubles the body and mind. Tarantismo is, when the evil spirit of the past returns to endure his weeping, it originates from the pagan orgiastic initiation rites between 1300 and 1800.

In the summer season the high temperature, the bright light and hitting sun together with the repressive christian culture, was thought to awaken the spirits of the home who would infiltrate the human bodies through boredom. The possessed also confess that the first symptom of the spider's poison is annoyance.
Taranta is a healing dance to the sound of 3 instruments: the violin, the accordion, the tamorra (hand drum). The tarantata ( possessed person) starts the dance laying on the floor, becoming the spider, reacting with their pure instinct to the music, wishing for visions of release and freedom. Then stands up and starts to step with their feet on the floor in small jumps trying to fight the spider until losing her senses.

Once a year the possessed would be brought at the church of St. Paul in Galatina, next to which there is a spring, which was said to contain healing water. Here the tarantati were able to give into the delirium completely and move freely trying to release the repressed self.

Salento, ancient home of a population migrated from Greece, is the area in Puglia that hosts this tradition. We can trace the origin of the taranta in the Menadi, celebrations in honor of Dioniso, god of Liberation, life force, joy and wine. The Menadi or Baccanti, were priests and cultists, who during the celebration were said to be possessed by the ecstatic frenzy and dancing of the god. Later on, the themes of the songs changed into torment of love, for the men who travel to the mines, impossible love or enamorment.

The tradition lives on as a musical festival called La notte della Taranta, where the music and dance tradition is kept alive.

scenographic ideas.......

spider web

woven mandala

dreamcatcher

connecting space / objects (inc. instruments) / performers using string

circular stage

< chiharu shiota
installation using string

"midway upon the journey of our life
i found myself within a forest dark
for the straightforward pathway had been lost..."

opening lines from Dante's Divine Comedy

Hecate was the chief goddess presiding over magic and spells. She witnessed the abduction of Demeter's daughter Persephone to the underworld and, torch in hand, assisted in the search for her. Thus, pillars called Hecataea stood at crossroads and doorways, perhaps to keep away evil spirits.

low light levels
shadow plays
long fades (towards darkness) / begin in darkness
subtle haze enhances light

anthony mccall
solid light sculptures
how haze makes light more sculptural

Sand as a metaphor for time and infinity

the desert as a graveyard of the past

future > our planet is desertifying

prophets have often ventured into the desert to seek revelation and commune with god

making a central altar, with a cup that contains sand?

holy sand instead of holy water?

Celtic wheel of the solar year

26,000 year cycle of the Yugas

Wheel of fortune tarot

concept

Anima mundi by Robert Fludd

Sol Niger (the black sun) is used to illuminate the dissolution of the body, a blackening of matter, or putrefaction. Recurring images of specific solar motifs can be found in the form of a "dark" or "black sun", or a green lion devouring the Sun

A sistrum (Latin: sistra, from the Greek σεῖστρον "seistron" of the same meaning; literally "that which is being shaken") is a musical instrument of the percussion family, chiefly associated with ancient Egypt. It is an instrument heavily involved with religious and ritualistic practices concerning various musical and joyful deities.

Robert Johnson - known as the master of delta blues. Legend has it that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads, in exchange for learning to play the guitar real good.

< Puglian hand drum "tamburello".

Because of earth's inherent rhythms (wind, rain, day and night, seasons) drums are known to speak directly to the body (breath, heartbeat, walk and speech). Through drum and dance rituals, the body reunites with the nature of change that is constant, and the spinning of the body is a way of flowing with the rotation of the planet.

Unlike many pagan and shamanistic traditions, Christianity forbade drums in churches - because of the Western body/mind dichotomy - and since the drum was said to speak directly to the body, Christians viewed this as the work of the devil. During the witch hunting era in Europe, the hand drums of the Samí people were burnt at the stake in Scandinavia, accused of being an instrument associated with devil worship.

The word for rhythm (used by the Malinke tribes in West Africa) is FOLI. It is a word that encompasses so much more than drumming, dancing or sound. It's found in every part of daily life.

< "In Relation" (which vida vojić co-directed and performed, 2021) is a 5 min music and movement performance which emphasizes the concept of "relationality". Unlike Western individuality, which through Cartesian thought suggests that entities can exist autonomously from each other, relationality can be described as connectedness - instead defining existence through relation.

>> connecting performing bodies using string. creating various shapes (cross, square, triangle) with string by moving bodies in space...

spinning spider web...
spinning as dance...
rotate like the earth...
spiral

THE
LONGEST
NIGHT

THE
LONGEST
NIGHT

could broken cables be used as alluding to spiders
as well as threads
interconnectedness of cables > wires > signals > trash
> the world wide web ?

"Seeing into darkness, is clarity
Knowing how to yield, is strength
Use your own light, to become part of the source of light

This is called practicing eternity"

tao te ching 52