Category: music & song

Too Close to the Sun

Too Close to the Sun was a work in progress performance devised and performed with Hannah Reade which explored – via the Icarus myth – ideas of failure and the value we place on breakages and crashes.

With a box of feathers and a gasp, the audience were invited to consider their dark and light sides, and join together by making a soundtrack of their breath and song which provided the basis for all the sound in the show.

Too Close to the Sun was a BAC Scratch commission.

Dates: May 2012

 

Anchored

a performance lecture about class, witnessing, and who gets left out of “history”

“I think you are astutely funny on stage, but what I really enjoy is how you make it ok for us to go deeply into something serious, long enough to be thoughtful and reflecting and thankful, actually.” – Dr. Simon Bowes, commissioner.

Anchored was initially made for the conference ‘Hold Everything Dear: John Berger and performance’ at the University of Greenwich in April 2018.
 
We are performance makers: we are looking ever closer at the detail of where we are now so that we may lose our bearings. 
 
“Surrounded by so many abstractions, they have to invent and share their own transient landmarks.”
 
We hope to come back, to find ourselves elsewhere.

This performance meditates on achorlessness across three threads:
  • performative writing gathered around autobiographical reflections on place and silence
  • field recordings and lullabies from Alan Lomax’s archive
  • footage of everyday materials magnified by a factor of 400

Text, song and image weave together exploring what remains when we lose our anchors of place and time.

related projects

Actions from the Afterlife

The Lullaby Directory

Poems Made from Words Found in the Bin

The Lullaby Directory

An exploration of the history of lullabies, their beauty, and darkness: The Lullaby Directory explores the human need to be held, and how we use song to hold ourselves against the unpredictability of existence.

“Rhiannon Armstrong can sing […] the most luscious of anti-capitalist protest songs” Megan Vaughan

“mesmerisingly beautiful songs” Clare Qualmann, audience member

 

The project began with an invitation to make a performance that would take place in complete darkness. 

Rhiannon performs versions of lullabies from around the world, drawing on extensive research from publications and recording archives.

The Lullaby Directory explores in particular those lullabies that express a wish to harm the baby, touch as part of the listening experience, and uses bespoke amplification techniques that turn singing into highly responsive vibrations.

The Lullaby Directory has been shown as:

  • a multi-sensory performance taking place in total darkness at Battersea Arts Centre
  • a site-specific choral performance at Wellcome Collection Reading Room
  • a theatre performance incorporating science fiction writing at The Yard Theatre

 

related projects

Anchored

Actions from the Afterlife

The International Archive of Things Left Unsaid