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A music-theatre work especially written for Wellington pianist Dan Poynton. Although referring indirectly to religious symbolism, the composition focuses on the physical and mental stress that pianists submit themselves to.

• Body: 14 Stations; computer-set 

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• Jack Body: 14 Stations 

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• Body: 14 Stations 

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• Desdemona's Song - John Couch  Year: 2005 

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I became inspired to write this piece by a rather disparate selection of influences: the Golden Years permanent exhibit at the Te Papa Tongarewa museum in Wellington, Giacometti’s Women of Venice sculptures, and a photocopy of an old poster from the early 1900s.

I had been aware of Giacometti’s striking sculptures of emaciated figures, but hadn’t seen them in the flesh until the beginning of this year at an exhibition in Christchurch. I was particularly enamoured with Women of Venice, an apparently loosely arranged group of stationary female figures all facing straight ahead in a mesmerising and somewhat disarming display of trance-like fixed focus. I imagined a similar group of performers stationed about the stage like petrified soldiers risen from a swamp, who then come to life at random and begin to channel voices from their pasts. This idea of channelling voices was also inspired by the Golden Years exhibit, where museum patrons are lead into an old junk shop that has closed down for the day, only to find items in the shop seemingly coming to life in a display of a potted history of New Zealand.

I then came across a copy of Henry Wright’s infamous poster from the early 1900s cautioning women to abandon exercising any political assertions whatsoever. The poster read:

Notice to EPICENE WOMEN
Electioneering Women are requested not to call here

They are recommended to go home, to look after their children, cook their husbands’ dinners, empty the slops, and generally attend to the domestic affairs for which nature intended them.

By taking this advice they will gain the respect of all right-minded people – an end not to be attained by unsexing themselves and meddling in masculine concerns of which they are profoundly ignorant.

Henry Wright,
103 Mein Street,
Wellington

I found the poster amusing in its ridiculousness, and played with the words so as to make nonsense of them, or to blatantly give them a feminist angle. Here is an example of one of the tweaked versions:

Notice to Sloppy Children
Affairs of sloppy husbands are requested not to attend Wellington.

They are recommended to unsex their meddling masculine nature and generally concern themselves in their profoundly ignorant nature.

By taking this advice they will slop their children’s dinners by unsexing themselves – an end not to be attained by cooking their children or Henry Wright.

I also used John Cage’s method of ‘reading though’ the text using a mesostic with the words “EPICENE WOMEN”, as he did with James Joyce’s Finnegan’s “Wake” in his Roaratorio: an Irish Circus on Finnegan’s Wake (but using the name JAMES JOYCE).

Despite my amusement, I was struck by the use of the word “epicene” in the poster. It implied that women who involved themselves in politics must not really be women, renouncing their sexuality so as to cause infinite trouble with all the devilish potency of a coven of Lady Macbeths. Similar attitudes still exist today, particularly amongst women, and there is still an apparent suspicion of ‘tomboys’ as well as a tug of war between traditionalism and feminism within individuals. It is this ironic fact that interests me the most – that, despite the extraordinary amounts of courage and hard work from women of the past to be seen as equals with men, many women today unwittingly foster oppression by adhering to gender steriotypes.

In this piece I’ve played with aspects of bitchiness, misogyny, sadness, political fieriness, the natural unaffectedness of growing up rurally, the silliness yet appeal of TV commercials, the comfort of crackly old radio songs, and the determination and single-mindedness of women intent on having their voices heard. I’ve also been interested in the potential for double meanings by setting the texts in certain ways, an example being Helen Clarke’s statement about the struggles of her early parliamentary days being sung by the baritone voice. I consider this a rejection of the notion that all people must tidily fit into the category of male or female and therefore must at all times show undeniable evidence either way.

Claire Scholes

• Scholes, C.: Epicene Women; computer-set 

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• Scholes, C: Epicene Women; computer-set 

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• NZ Premieres 2008 Vol. 3 

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• Phil Dadson: Peace Rites 

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Two fearless percussionists duel with skipping ropes and whistles, creating rhythms and improving their cardiovasular fitness simultaneously.

• Cowan: Skip; facsimile 

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• Claire Cowan: Skip 

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In many cultures, the public bath is the focus of community conversation and exchange. The act of cleansing is both sensual and spiritual; a bath house is a place we become naked, removing our sweat and public personas. In Toronto, these rituals have almost been forgotten. What would our city look like if we reimagined the bath house as shared public space? SLIP brings together the diverse talents of writer and actor Anna Chatterton, choreographer Yvonne Ng, composer Juliet Palmer and installation artist Christie Pearson in a new, site-specific interdisciplinary performance for the Harrison Baths. The Baths and Swimming Pool, established in 1910, are now housed in a 1960s building: an urban oasis providing free showers, swimming, washrooms and laundry facilities. urbanvessel has imagined a collective history for the Harrison Baths, and raises questions about our future by interacting with the architecture of the building itself. When much of the world gets naked together, why do Torontonians adhere to gender segregation? Few free public spaces remain since amalgamation – how does this afffect our sense of community? SLIP travels the labyrinth of the Harrison Baths complex: from the tiled lobby, through the gargantuan men’s locker room, to the majestic pool, and finally, through the series of intimate rooms making up the women’s space. Fusing dance, theatre, music and installation, SLIP features the vocal talents of jazz singer and improviser Christine Duncan, opera singer Vilma Vitols, and Japanese folk singer Aki Takahashi. Drummer Jean Martin lays down the rhythm, while Louis Laberge-Cote and Susanne Chui add their bodies (and voices) to the mix. The music is visceral and vocal, combining body slaps with handheld percussion and the sounds of the space itself. Audience members will experience a grimy, razzmatazz Hollywood chorusline, a sparse and intimate Japanese folk song, and opera echoing off the tiles. Sound, mist, water and light transform the everyday into a dreamlike space. urbanvessel is an interdisciplinary collective creating performance works rooted in the sounds and spaces of Toronto’s overlooked corners.

See website: http://www.urbanvessel.com/SLIP.html

• Juliet Palmer: Slip 

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• Ritchie A.: The God Boy; Computer Set 

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• Ritchie A: The God Boy; computer-set 

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• Ritchie, A.: The God Boy; computer-set 

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• Ritchie A.: The God Boy  Year: 2004 

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• Anthony Ritchie and Jeremy Commons: The God Boy  Year: 2004 

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• Opera Otago: The God Boy by Anthony Ritchie  Year: 2004 

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