I enter the oval forecourt of megalithic stone walls and temple archways, and step over the flat limestone threshold etched with a snake-like vein.  Time draws away and I am swept into the fertile initiatory chambers of the instinctual and wild terrain of the ancient great mother.  I open my voice and the sounds emerge pure and simple.  Her mystical echo fills me with an aching desire to remember her presence within my flesh.

Vocal Recordings from the Mnajdra Temples, Malta


Stone Mysteries

Gliding Slowly into the Body of Origin is an interactive work  for live voice improvisation, prerecorded soundfiles, software environment created in MAX, the SOMO controller, narrated text and spatlization.  It was commissioned by New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA) through the Ontario Arts Council, and was performed on August 22, 2015 as part of NAISA's Sound Travels concert.  Through the performance process, the piece becomes a rewilding of self as a response to the patriarchal agenda of socializing the body out of its own knowledge of itself. 

Performers include:  Wendalyn Bartley (improvised vocalizations and digital processing on the SOMO controller); Ruth Danziger (spoken texts); Ian Jarvis (Max interactive environment; Darren Copeland (live spatialization).  

The spoken texts juxtapose two sources, with editorial assistance from Ruth Danziger:  Gliding Slowly phrases written and compiled  by Wendalyn Bartley; excerpts from the journals of Annie Raison Parry (1928-29).  Annie is Wendalyn's great grandmother.   

SPOKEN TEXTS: 

Gliding Slowly to the Body of Origin

Gliding Slowly 1:

And she began to move
To move in a new way
Gliding slowly
Slowly gliding
Listening to her flesh, the pulse within, her cells, her breath, her lips, her tongue, her mouth, her throat

Annie Journals 1:

Weather hot and sultry
Canned 5 quart peas.
Stan finished drawing in wheat - started cutting more oats
Fine harvest weather
Dorothy started vocal lessons again. $1.00 per lesson
Went to Dee's and spent the afternoon listening over the radio
Pa died this morning about 6 o'clock
Poured down rain most all day
Picked what apples there was and a tree of pears
Cliff Eichenburg brought up a Westinghouse radio and set it up on trial
Weather cold as greenland sharp high wind
We worked at quilts today - too cold to wash
Grand winter day 

Gliding Slowly 2:

Listening and gliding
Listening to the pulse within the terrain of her body.
Memories returning
Voices rising
Gliding wild and free
Dreaming of distant grandmothers
Listening gliding
Slowly
Slowly gliding

Gliding Slowly 3a:

Watery sirens calling 
Calling her into form
She becomes the pulse
The bone, blood, sinew, cells, skin, new being

Annie Journals 2:

Roads are terrible. Cars getting stuck in mud holes all day.
Dorothy drove Topsy to town and got the Radio Battery
Pretty good sap day. Linus is tapping this week.
Stanley sowed the first piece of oats this afternoon
Weather seems more settled and fair for seeding
Elsie finished working her quilt blocks today
Our batteries are running down can't get much music tonight
Dorothy went to choir practice at the church
Cora's Birthday 34 years old
Stanley and Dorothy milked the cows alone
Fine, clear and moonlight 

Gliding Slowly 3b:

Dark serpent Lilith rising
Returned from exile
She opens her mouth and draws them in
Fiery tongues and slippery tails
Bringing her back to her body of birth
Body of origin, Body of voice

Annie Journals 3:

Very hot day rains going around
Radio on the blink again
Cora has a fat baby girl born around 1 o'clock this morning.
The girls done another wash and they dried lovely
Labour Day holiday - first trip for the new baby girl, coming to Grandma's.
Hot dry and dusty
Myrt fixed up our Radio so it's working fine.
Stanley got the milk cheque
We heard Howard Ferguson, the Ontarios Prime Minister speak over the radio tonight 
Stan dug the rest of the potatoes and got them in after milking
The black sow had 13 pigs this morning
Thunderstorms

Gliding Slowly 4:

Listening
Sounding cellular intelligence within
Skin, cells...
Gliding slowly she comes back
To her body of birth
Body of origin
Back to the one who is Laden with Voice

Slowly gliding
A pulse beneath her feet
Gliding slowly
Back to her body
Her body of origin
Magna Mater, Prima Materia,
MA

Gliding Slowly into the Body of Origin

Cave Ambiance

Night in September in the Matang range, Sarawak, Borneo.
The frog chorus begins to slow as the night progresses.

Gliding Slowly into the Body of Origin

Wendalyn

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