No more shadows above, below or on either side

21 April 2008

Graham wrote, with some nice thoughts/comments following on from the stuff I posted yesterday about Sight is the Sense…

I liked your notes on the flatness of the narrative and the implications for a performer as flesh and blood archivist of that text. I read the text with a mounting hope that I wouldn't find a narrative presence in the landscape, but be trusted to be present there without signposts – and the text doesn't disappoint for that. No signs in the snow.

One of my favourite, favourite descriptions is from a letter Rimbaud wrote about crossing the Alps on foot:

"No more shadows above, below or on either side, despite the enormous objects all about. No more road, precipices, gorge or sky: nothing but white to dream, to touch, to see or not to see, since it's impossible to look up from the white botheration that one supposes to be the middle of the path….Without the shadow that one is oneself, and without the telegraph poles that mark the hypothetical road, one would be as confused as a sparrow in an oven."

I don't know whether that's more apt for performer or viewer here. Both, hopefully. Fellow travellers.