is then/then is (2019) explores how performers’ gestures might exist in a state of permanent liminality. The performers’ hands are treated as separate entities, each independently presenting unstable physical movements. For example, bow pressure is notated via multiple fragile lines which require the performers’ focus to be constantly readdressed: the movements of the right hand exist on a constant threshold. The autonomy of limbs causes the performers’ hands to interfere with each other due to continually transitioning bowing speeds and depression of strings often to no sonic avail: this balance of synchronisation and independence cultivates a sense of betweenness, in which the music constantly falls in and out of itself, settling in neither present nor potential future states whilst simultaneously, paradoxically, inhabiting both.
Performed by Hebe Elms and Jess Jennings of The Headrow Quartet.
Recorded live at Clothworkers’ Centenary Concert Hall, University of Leeds. Huge thanks to Jack Cradock for his sound engineering and camera work.
Funded by the Berkofsky Arts Award.
