One Precious Moment
Saturday 13th Nov 2004
Today the intrepid group consisted of Yorum and Leahy from Israel, Ilyea ( originally from Russia) and myself. ) Yorum and Ilyea are here with Echo Echo. Yorum and Ilyea are here with Echo Echo,
Echo Echo now this is just getting silly, dance company.
I suggested a score ( 300 - 1 for Everton) because the others didn't know kwhat they whirr letting themselves in for. We would do a kind of leap-frog. Person A would chalk a shape and write some words on the ground and stand beside what they had done looking down and relecting upon it. Person B would walk past A, noticing A's writing and move a few yards ahead. B would then make thier marks and words and stand at that place. C then walks past A and B, and subsequently does their thing; D follows suit or else be guilty of reneaging as they say in whist ( a lesser known language most frequently used in libraries eg. shh, quietplease, notal king, shhhh. Except in Derry's central library where the rule , particularly at the newspaper area seems to be "TALK AS LOUD AND TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN ALL AT ONCE".)
We followed the leapfrog score most of the way up the left hand pavement (even though all of us were right-handed. I suppose that we were being deliberate leaves and the kidney ate shoots ly discordant.) of Shipquay Street.
It was great that later on the score loosened and our work became more playful and spontaneous.
Leahy began by chalking a large heart.
Yorum moved forward and beside two wriggly lines wrote BURGOS BEAUTY . (Being I assume a mispelling of BOURGEOIS, which I have just looked up in the dictionary.
Further up , Ilyea (is the top of his head) drew a series of iner-connected rectangles and wrote CLOUDS beside them. Having passed Ilyea (and I hadn't even eaten him) I noticed a flagstone with a variety of pavement flotsam and jetsum (gum, spit, sweety paper, crumbs, goo etc.) and after framing it wrote ALL ONE.
There followed:
- STOP written inside a large circle and an arrow with a squiggly tail touching the outer perimeter. Whether intended or not this resembled to my , no doubt perverse scrutiny, a sperm at the outer wall of an ovum.
- ONLY.
- PRECIOUS MOMENT. Written beside a tiny fragment of glass inside two concentric circles.
- PEACE and then the Hebrew for this
- YOU CAN ASK ONLY STANDING. No doubt in response to the questions of young passers by; by this time we had gathered a small , young, curious crowd.
- WHERE IS THE SUN?, written in Russian.
- STICK WITH IT. Written beside a tiny framed twig.
From "Stick With It" Leahy drew a long line meandering line to a lampost further up the pavement.
- I ONLY GOT STUCK WITH IT SORRY. was next.
- Then Ilyea performed a kind of dance , rolling , bending and looping over a large litter bin. (Literally dancing).
- Inspired by this movement routine I noticed a tree and a lampost about six feet apart.
I lay on the ground stretched out between them, my hands clasped around the base of the tree and my feet grasping the lampost. On the ground I had written STRETCH YOURSELF.
At this point Leahy had to leave for a work appointment.
Ilyea wrote on the ground , MICE, MUSIC, DUDE, SPEECH, MOVEMENT.
The three of us stood there and improvised sounds in a discordant yet blended chorous surrounded by our fans.
- Yorum led away with a long meandering line linking at separated points the letters G-R-E-E-N in green chalk.
I continued the line an took it beside a poster on the wall advertising a rally protesting against the onslaught on Fallujah. Ilyea drew a boat and chalked STOP THIS SLAUGHTER.
One of our followers said, "Ah so that is what it is all about" - delighted to have "discovered" a meaning for our activities.
- Yorum continued the line, and wrote WHAAAAAAAAAAA! and GET LOST.
- Ilyea drew a series of random ovals and chalked some Russian words
. The three of us used the ovals as stepping stones and performed some interlacing movements before I left to join the passing anti- war parade.
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