love letters to a concrete body
Text by Ashleigh Musk
I acknowledge the traditional custodians of these lands and seas and honour their unbroken commitment to, and deep knowledge of, the natural environments that we form part of. Sovereignty was never ceded.
Fertile Ground by Ashleigh Musk and Michael Smith Image Ivan Trigo Miras
Solidity is desirable for humans at a time of rapid change.
Grappling with our impermanence and in turn conquer through construction.
Living at odds with the natural world in constructed realities, believing this will last forever.
The body suffers to adapt to the starkness, harshness, the unyielding material foreign to our softness.
I obsess over the beauty, the colossal scale of brutalist architecture. Smooth, curved, angular, contrasting. The manipulation of materials into constructed utopias.
I share my obsession with a close friend and collaborator. We begin to build. We dig to understand the material, we uncover complex, destructive, delicate examples.
Fragile links bind nature and material together.
Concrete structures ‘for all their stone-like superficial qualities, are actually made of the skeletons of sea creatures ground up with rock. It takes millions upon millions of years for these sea creatures to live, die and form into limestone.
This timescale contrasts starkly with the life spans of contemporary buildings.” (1)
This is one body’s tensions in grasping the artificial - natural interplay at stake.
Insistence at living at odds with the natural world, potential resistance to these constructed landscapes.
we build one level.
we build two levels.
it crumbles.
we ignore.
we build three levels.
a future we have long since abandoned
we build four levels.
it is decaying.
rusting out from under us,
a cancer.
we build five levels.
we ignore the splintering.
the easy fix we made - the iron cells,
as fragile as the billions
and billions
and billions
replicated inside us,
rust away.
we build six stories
of joints and systems
accepting only perfect symmetry
we build
our desire hinges on our ability to conquer
we
will
never
stop
Pouring,
it fills every crevice.
Roots down,
I crumble.
This stony exterior gives way to water,
I do not yield
but begin to decay,
I consume
I magnify
I am a reliable ally.
I put pressure into the floor to create space.
Fingertips desensitised, I reach for the hard exterior
soft interior
consumed by the weight
on my shoulders, my heart, my head
tipping forward and compressing
an inward collapse driven by an external explosion
dust settles.
Will you wait?
Constant forward motions with constant economic motions the pendulum motions
we shy away
but it’s too late
we will never play here again.
A concrete concept,
immobility comes from your indecisive action
which triggers her.
Solidity, I am solidly entrenched.
reliability, I reliably understand your point of view.
immobility, I am frozen in time.
micro-shifts spark chain of motion
bones cold,
it creeps higher.
Expanding,
it sets,
a solid foundation to withstand generations.
But I am (supposed to be) free
and I will not be bound to gravity.
I begin, beginning again.
Lifting the cloud is a heavy task
as heavy as the concrete which binds us together.
Keeping us isolated
we rely
on the
invisible forces through the technologies at our fingertips.
Who knew being together was such an intimate act.
When intimacy is usually reserved for the loved one.
Singular, chosen.
This silence is constructed.
This silence is not welcomed, as we thought it would be.
We try to claim it as our own, but nature laughs.
She knows.
Stoney.
She is superficial.
Our brutal mountains
made on the skeletons of sea creatures.
Our concrete towers
easy to conquer
the precipice dances closer.
indestructible
we destruct it
indestructible
we order destruction.
luxury distracts us.
blue green grey
hardens
decays
softens
slowly
The collapse of trust is a cascade from which your bodies will never return. Set in motion, you are set out to sea, you are set into a relentless flow of a motion that can not be reset. The body remembers the betrayal, the body memory sets into stone and forms opinions of its own. You arrive at a place of function, merely existing. You discover vertical capabilities which allow you to efficiently rise above nature. You hunger for higher ground, unyielding in your quest, stacking one on top of another, on top of another, on top of another. You cannot see your origins, you simply work to maintain. You nurture, as is instinct, but the materials remain cold, immobile, inflexible. Resistant to touch, the cement skin does not yield. It radiates - power, wealth - and you absorb and replicate. Brick and body feed one another. You are continually reinventing more natural versions, more lifelike options to choose from. You are persistent. You push away. You offer resistance. You lead a slow disintegration, joints grinding, sutures appearing at your foundations. It swiftly shatters your ability to control, outgrowing its master.
Construction site: do not enter. Conflict site: accidents of geography and wealth intersect.
With blunt forcefulness,
silence between blast and collapse.
A vast stark stripped useful place with precision, perfection, ordinary and radiating.
Your body is contained here.
Entombing nature
forcing her hand and choking slowly.
Witness this fragile body and this fragile place.
How do we care for what we have created?
--
HIGH DENSITY: love letters to a concrete body is inspired by a current work in development, Fertile Ground, with co-creator Michael Smith. Set within a forest of cement, the work observes the fragility of the human body beating alongside our persistence to conquer, outlive and survive in the face of crisis. Audience and performers move through avalanches of decay, gritty transformations that reveal spaces for hope and action.
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Keulemans, G., 2016. The Problem With Reinforced Concrete. [online] The Conversation. Available at: <https://theconversation.com/the-problem-with-reinforced-concrete-56078> [Accessed 30 September 2020].
. Wallace-Wells, D., 2019. The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story Of The Future. [London]: Allen Lane, p.25.
Ashleigh (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, producer and community arts facilitator. She uses the body as the central tool for creation, alongside text, object and space, creating works that balance darkness and fear with light, hope and reflection. Ashleigh uses movement as a vehicle to spark empowerment, celebration and change, encouraging active witnessing by audiences and participants.
DELVING INTO DANCE IS SUPPORTED BY THE VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH CREATIVE VICTORIA AND THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH THE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL, ITS ARTS FUNDING AND ADVISORY BODY. IF YOU ENJOY DELVING INTO DANCE PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A CONTRIBUTION HERE.
Dance was born outside, perhaps dance can return to outside? We practise in a community, by this I mean, in class, rehearsal, performance and in communion with other bodies where we seek to connect, to dispel loneliness, to find purpose, find tribe and belong.