BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
In 2018, Allison Wright and Bec Plexus connected via Skype.
Their conversation was deeply personal, and would affect the future of their relationship.
Now, these two composers have chosen to capture the heart of their Skype call, and share its story through music. Their aptly titled work Selfless will receive its Australian premiere as part of the Rubiks’ Collective performance Glitch.
Before you listen live this week, Allison and Bec tell us what Selfless means to them.
Editor’s note: Allison and Bec produced their interview responses collaboratively.
Allison and Bec, tell us about the idea behind Selfless.
Selfless revolves around the recording of a Skype conversation we had in November 2018. We were in an impossible situation. We fell for each other when one of us was already in a relationship. To make things even more complex, we were living on opposite sides of the planet.
Now, over a year later, we reduced this recording to its most salient parts in the hope that our hyper-personal experience could turn into something that can be universally felt.
There are two sides to this story, and we wanted to reflect each of them. We divided the recording into two halves, with Allison setting her voice to music and Bec setting hers. Finally, we both combined our music with a visual element: Allison collaborated with video artist Xuan (United States) on making a video installation, and Bec directed a short film with the guidance of Fagan Wilcox (Popcandi, Melbourne).
However, the two sides of this story combine to make a whole. Therefore, we designed the pieces to be able to be performed both separately and simultaneously. When performed simultaneously, one can hear the conversation in its entirety.
At Glitch, Rubiks will premiere the pieces only separately, as the simultaneous performance would require a doubled ensemble. The technology to clone a chamber ensemble isn’t quite there yet, but we’re crossing our fingers for next year.
The Skype call that underpins this music is a personal one: how can we understand the narrative of your relationship through this music?
By each of us setting only our own voice to music, we tried to illustrate how we each experienced the Skype conversation differently. You can hear that in the music.
ALLISON: A big part of this conversation to me was to try to stay emotionally open and objective, whilst also protecting my own feelings. I try to reflect this in the music by focusing on expansion and contraction; for instance, with a fluctuation tessitura and harmonic relationships.
BEC: This conversation represents one of the most confusing times in my life so far. Back then, I felt like I was cycling around a pit of pain and expectations, not knowing how to reach its core. Musically, that evolved into endless modulations and rhythmical instability. At the same time, there is this shimmer of consonance, reflecting the mutual trust between Allison and me.
You composed the works independently, but they’re interwoven with excerpts from your call. Why did you want to include your spoken voices, and how do you feel about baring yourselves to audiences in this way?
Inspired by the tenacious vulnerability of performance artist Marina Abramović, we wanted to take the risk of making and sharing something of huge personal significance. We didn’t want to make “just another chamber piece”, but aimed for something real. This left us no space for Band-Aids or curtains; we needed to show it all in order to do this experience justice.
Have you heard each other’s music, or given each other feedback on these pieces?
We had to move back and forth between collaborating closely, and working separately: collaborating in order to map the pieces in such a way that they can also be performed together, and working separately in order to voice each of our individual perspectives.
As we got further into developing the work, the creative process actually became therapeutic. It was interesting to realise when we needed to give each other space and when we needed to regroup.
Rubiks will perform Selfless at Glitch, Temperance Hall, 27 April.
We are very proud to collaborate with Rubiks: this performance features as a pop-up point in our Roving Launch, so be quick to grab your FREE copy of CutCommon print issue #2 when you attend!
Images supplied.
