The Demons

I come from a Cape Verdean background, where superstition is still very much alive.  The fusion of western religion and old West African believes mesh in contemporary society, as bugs bunny and The Simpsons run through-out the day on television.  This new world mix is a place of acceptable confusion and quick assimilation.  As I roped Tuesday morning here in the yard I did so purposefully facing some graffiti murals that surround the main yard, and as the calves burned from the previous day's workout, and the sweat poured from the days 11 o'clock sun, my mind started to imagine and create stories and histories about the images in front of me, everything from monkey faces to dissolving alien creatures.  Not too long ago (and still in many parts of the world) these images would be (are) connected to the spaces of evil.  I thought about such images being thought-of in the minds of my ancestors and how they would have been perceived.  It is not uncommon for a person to be possessed in Cape Verde, their bodies controlled by a demon and imprisoned for the duration of the attentional deed, and yet here they, such imaginations served as art and popular distance, reflective differences of otherness and incredibleness.  These images around me now (as I do this residency) are creative symbols of a different imagination, but as I skipped in front of them I thought of their acceptance and wondered about time travelling.  These would have been ghosts, some of them unfathomed images which would have needed immediate attention (from a witch doctor likely).  Such images in dreams might have been death to the mind or soul, if not to the physical body as well!

Some Words from the First Day (Skipping on Dirt)

I felt my calves starting to tense and I thought about how much technic saves you from massive pain, injury or just immobility.  I hear of West African runners having better prepared feet when it comes to marathons, that this slight advantage may be the reason they are some of the top runners in the world.  Running on mixed terrain, different natural platforms, earths of multitudes, can only help.

I started skipping on dirt and as I described in an earlier entry the ground supported my feet, the action of the rope beating the ground produced soft earth which rested under my feet, allowing me to continue on without much pain.  But my calves, well, that was something else.  My achilles flexing up and down, repeatedly, at times twice per second, and my deep soleus producing slight cramps, which later in the day needed icing.  I continued on, feeling and knowing, that for many in history, those I reflect upon so often in my works - and for many now throughout the labour world - stopping was/is not an option.  Yet I understand I have that option (a contradiction I am very aware of), I understand this every time I stop.  This is why one of the project's focuses is endurance (not only physical but mental endurance of reflection). 

In this first day I found myself distracted quite easily.  The space here is like two big yards, with a car park and different buildings slightly surrounding them.  People come in and out, not constantly, but enough to catch my attention - sometimes I actually hope for it.  There are also small bar/restaurants around and through the yard's fences I can hear, and often see, people eating and chatting;  I suppose a large part of my distraction is self inflicted.  The space is new and my eyes and ears wonder like a child in the forest.

I also noticed the heavier rope that I brought.  I chose this particular rope because it allows me to focus more on strength and not on speed, and with every passing minute the weight is felt.  My upper back swells and sweats, and my left arm struggles to keep up with my right.  By the end of that day I had taken some images, noticed the art left on the ground by the rope and my feet, got used to the swell of birds that hover above me from time to time, and even lost myself for a moment - the rhythm allowed me some escape, and I reflected.

The Rope and the Sun

These last few days of skipping have found the sun beaming down on my back.  I have been removing my shirt, allowing my dark brown skin to breath, greased with sweat it pours in excessiveness, shinning and reflecting the surrounding buildings, whose residents momentarily look at the unfamiliar site panting in front of them.  I still look like an athlete, so the gazes of often for a moment - a person is simply working out.

Around me I have shade, though I don't use it.   There are places to hide from the rays, but the rays make me reference and give me history.  The rays speak of consistency, impermanence, they have been there, and I am the one who will come and go.  Just as it has been, it was there at that specific point in time - yes, that time.  It has shown also on other backs, whose skins were also reflective .  

I beat the ground with my bear feet like a preacher's sermon, the vocabulary often distant, but pounding clear and direct.  The ground made softer with each skip, the soft dirt softer with each whip of the rope, the fine dust settling on my ankles, while the hard pebbles bounce off a near by tree.   The sermon is heard by those who choose to listen, its deliverance aids me, and guides me.  The sermon is a conversation with history.  I feel they listen as I listen to the pounding of bare feet, jumping as if in a trance, as if reaching towards some Gods.

The sun makes me think of work, and the worked.  The rope continues to whip the ground and the marks penetrate layer by layer of dirt, and that fine dirt makes the bottom of my feet feel softer, yet it is all to make them harder, for tomorrow I will continue.  The sermon must continue, the histories must accost me, my feet mus endure.

The First Day at 'l'estruch'

Started skipping yesterday as part of a mini-residency run by a group called Accio Cultural Metropolitana (you can find them here: accioculturalmetropolitana.wordpress.com) in 'l'estruch', Sabadell, Catalonia.

I have titled this specific project: Internal Transmogrification – Defeat (Me) They Must

(Performance Art Piece)

This is the working statement I provided Anna:

This Mini-residential week I will be tapping into moments of endurance, exploring mental stability as it runs into instability and the transmogrification within the process; as it responds to physical exhaustion.  I will be doing this with a skipping rope and will be doing the action for continuous moments, at times for as long as the body will allow.

The rope is an important part of my personal critical and creative studies, its history of punishment, servitude, enslavement, order, tension, security, connection, dependency, imprisonment and more, make it a strong utensil to explore many facets of history and our links to such histories.  Though my concerns with history can often be particular, this piece is personal in some ways but completely open for viewer interpretation.

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And there you are a academic view of the work, stripped of feeling and poetics.  In this blog I intend to add a bit of the poetics, the feelings and some documentation of the everyday (it will last a week).  Besides this there will be a 'performance' day this coming Saturday in 'L'estruch' of which its activities I am still not sure of.

I have noticed that when I speak of skipping a pleasurable moment comes to people, possibly a connection to their childhood, the games which included the rope and the memories fill their minds; they smile at me for simply having said the word 'skipping'.  The connotations are endless, at times, boundless, yet there it is, it is binding - as most of its use suggests.  When people speak of happiness they want to connect, share and re-record, and I acquiesce them in with my imagination of their youth.

Yesterday there was a dancer here, who too is doing a residency (though a longer one) and she was asked what came to her mind when she heard 'rope' and she immediately thought of hanging..  The rope then can jump from moment to moment from different spaces to even more different spaces and many such spaces are somewhere in the memory fields of most of us.

The rope has many links and jumping it is something we do more often than we think!