Choreography and performance by Eryn Dace Trudell

Eryn is venturing into unknown territory here at the Sound Symposium. At the same time she is rediscovering things that she had forgotten. Eryn remembers through these explorations that prior to her conscious commitment to her dancing career, she played the flute and the piano and had been a person who was not afraid of making sound. Slinky Listening to Wall is an intimate and humble search for the inclusion of listening to seeing. sounding to moving.

Slinky Listening to Wall: two improvisational and choreographic pieces evolving from the physicality of listening.

Listening Piece #1: Slinky solo with aluminum pipes. A transforming landscape of sound and movement honoured by the dialogue between inanimate and animate.Slinkys desire is to be accompanied, perceived and understood, regardless oflanguage, with a childlike curiosity, in the discovery of something familiar. An abstract piece.

Listening Piece #2: Duet between Slinky and grand piano. The dancers task to be an objective vessel through which the music is experienced. A lyrical piece.

Thank you to The sound Symposium for this opportunity, The Canada Council for the Travel Grant, Lee Pui Ming for the inspiration, Artword Gallery and Theatre and the 502 Collective for the rehearsal space, Damn Straight for the pipes, and all my friends who have supported and encouraged me.

Entering the world of sound, to me, is like entering a dark forest. Doing it alone is like being abandoned on a deserted island. Originally, all of this material was to be a collaborative duet between composer/musician Lee Pui Ming and I. We experimented. We did silly things in a playful non-judgemental and spontaneous way.

In preparing for the sound symposium I have taken from our discoveries together, and interpreted them in my own way. In doing so I have become fascinated with everything. I have been working with the idea of assuming and knowing nothing. Surprising myself. I have been trying to stay true to experiential timing. I have discovered that when I am engaged and committed, good things happen compositionally. When I doubt, resist or become self concious the work is undermined and doesn't give back. I have been observing the sounds of each room in which I rehearse. Its negative and positive space. Its textures. I have been noticing that the energy with which I arrive, combined with the energy of my environment and the energy of the objects I am working with are huge variables. These variations are life. I like to work on life.The idea that, you can dance where you are , how you are, and who you are, today, now, is a new concept to me introduced by contact improvisation master Nancy Stark Smith.

The piano piece is definately the clearest of the two. It really writes itself. The piano that I have been working with has had a very nurturing energy. I fell in love. It has an intensity. A magnetism. The scores I have been working with are simple. The desire to play. Physicalizing the musical line. Giving voice to...touch. Touching. Contact. Fear. Negative and positive space. High space, floor space, wall space. Ways of sitting. Ways of waiting. Passive. Aggressive. Penetrative. Navigational. And as always lines, cicles, hards, softs, stillness, chaos.

The pipe piece is more difficult. There are alot of elements involved. So, the combinations are endless. It is like having a hundred paths to take home from the same place. If I were to perform everything I found, we would be here all night. If I were to concentrate on the pipes alone, the simplicity would lose its complexity. If I were to decide exactly which path to travel before I arrived, chances are it would be the muddiest, that day. Agood question is ...What is the essence of these objects and the sounds they make and the movements I do to make them." I'm still searching, but I think it has something to do with harnessing the earth. Its an intellegent ape kind of thing. Whenever I get really frustrated with the unruly nature of these elements combined with my imagination, I think about a child discovering something for the first time. I think of a gerble pushing the wood chips. I think of hummingbirds. I think of indigenous customs, and people. I think of fire, water, earth and air. I think of how much I love to share my dance.