To tease, to touch, to transcend
Performance Review for Tongue rolls between smiles
TO DO / TO MAKE, 2018.
Alice Heyward and Megan Payne, Tongue rolls between smiles, dur performance, 215 Albion.
Performance documentation courtesy of the artists. Photo by Jacqui Shelton.
Performance documentation courtesy of the artists. Photo by Jacqui Shelton.
Two people meet in a warehouse space. Their bodies are against a wall; rays of sunlight reflect on the floor before them. A projection of poetry is thrown onto the far right wall: the text describes the physical and mental learnings of each others’ form. In the left hand corner, a harrowing low drone reverberates from a speaker. One arm reaches across the others’ and they embrace, intertwining their limbs to encompass each other. Emotion is vital to our social relationships, psychological well-being, cognitive functions, and moral sensitivity. True expressions of what we feel versus how we communicate it physically are rife with numerous avenues of misinterpretation. As people grow together, bond and learn each other's mannerisms or communicative gestures, complex emotional exchanges can transcend words and rely solely on physical forms.
Alice Heyward and Megan Payne’s durational performance Tongue rolls between smiles, 2018 was presented as part of TO DO / TO MAKE, as curated by Shelley Lasica and Zoe Theodore. Previously performed at FUR Hairdressing and Bus Projects as part of Lesson’s From Dancing, the performance expands on the nuances of communication through choreography, developing each time the work is performed. Heyward and Payne’s movements negotiate the affectively spatial and absorbing relationships two can share as one. Heyward and Payne exploit sensual actions, evoking erotic notions that translate to romantic fixation, however, articulating their movements as platonic physical and emotional exchanges.
Alice Heyward and Megan Payne, Tongue rolls between smiles, dur performance, 215 Albion.
Performance documentation courtesy of the artists. Photo by Jacqui Shelton.
Performance documentation courtesy of the artists. Photo by Jacqui Shelton.
Throughout the performance, their bodies converge and expand in the warehouse space of Albion 215; considering the intimacy of their corporeal relationship and the platonic eroticism of their bodies. Together they move like ocean currents: the density-driven forces of their emotions, and the temperature of their desires motivate their continuous movement. Curled up together like a black mass ball, one teetering on the axis of the other’s knee, both organic and angular, their bodies combine to orchestrate positions that rely on sensation as engagement. Reacting and anticipating the others movements: a hand grappling an upper thigh, the other hand cradling the lower back, the other performer’s palm fixed to concrete, while their other hand embraces the other’s jaw, pushing, pulling, dragging, always touching, each action a display of affection and devotion.
Stabilising time, their bodies move as the poem rolls. Pacing downward, words detailing the desires, physicality, and limitations of their relationship:
Against the immovable show space and in the circle of our friendship, as capacities begin and end,
I want to hurt you, hug you, do mundane things with you, objectify you while I locate
my spine combs you still,
Smile.
I want to hurt you, hug you, do mundane things with you, objectify you while I locate
my spine combs you still,
Smile.
As the actions converse with the poem, the audience can disregard the context, as both are in constant flux the language can easily be misinterpreted. Only as time intervenes can the audience consider the connection. The poem speaks to the obvious. Instead of leaving pure movement and tension in a state of ambiguity, the words specify the platonic, adding context, but controlling the audience’s longing to wonder. This control is also investigated physically when Heyward and Payne’s actions shift from delicate to jarring. Keeping the rhythm of the movement in flux—resembling a shifting relationship—Heyward and Payne temporarily intensify and soften their body language. As the performance develops, naturally, the audience feels compelled to draw conclusions from their own subjectivity on the sensual movements, nevertheless the presence of the poetry was intermittently grounding.
Alice Heyward and Megan Payne, Tongue rolls between smiles, dur performance, 215 Albion.
Performance documentation courtesy of the artists. Photo by Jacqui Shelton.
Performance documentation courtesy of the artists. Photo by Jacqui Shelton.
The experience of emotion is a response from both internal and external events. Inviting emotional play, Heyward and Payne articulate an experiential, physiological and behaviourally stimulated experience, transporting the audience from voyeur to participant. By bridging the space between their bodies and the audiences with tension, they formulate an internal connection, inviting the audience to experience their physical power plays emotionally. Tongue rolls between smiles also incorporates an external catalyst that is the vibrations in the droning music and the rolling of the text, inviting the audience to feel vulnerable and focus on the flow of the movement within the context of the performers connection.
Throughout Tongue rolls between smiles the audience grow to comprehend that Heyward and Payne aren’t separate entities, as soon as their bodies touch, they become and move as one; a singularity, the curves of their bodies working in unison, not to become smaller, but to grow and expand in space. While consuming each other's bodily architecture they extend to consume the audience’s emotions, transcending aesthetics, bringing everyone intimately into a fluctuating state of tension and release. By directly engaging corporeal articulations of emotion, using their bodies as the foundation, and poetry as context, Heyward and Payne translate their multileveled connection to touch and transcend the relationship between themselves and the audience.
ARTISTS: Alice Heyward, Megan Payne.