Following a residency weekend exploring outdoor performance in June with Jany Jeremie, the show choreographer, I was employed as a performing artist for Harmonic Fields as part of Inside Out Festival and London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
Harmonic Fields is an ensemble of 500 instruments, played by the wind. Harnessing this natural energy, life is breathed into the orchestra, creating a symphonic soundscape, unique to each visitor.
Pierre Sauvageot, creator of Harmonic Fields explains. “We’re constantly bombarded with new noises, which amplify, until we no longer listen. Sounds from Harmonic Fields are quiet and come at their own pace, like waves on the seashore. It is music in its simplest, most primal form.”
Harmonic Fields is part of the London 2012 Festival, the spectacular 12-week nationwide celebration running from 21 June until 9 September bringing together leading artists from across the world with the very best from the UK.
The London 2012 Festival celebrates the huge range, quality and accessibility of the UK's world-class culture including dance, music, theatre, the visual arts, fashion, film, comedy and digital innovation, giving the opportunity for people across the UK to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Inside Out Festival website
We were very lucky to have amazing weather all week, and even one of the windiest locations on Dorset, we had some times when there was just no wind to play the instruments. It was great to meet and work with Pierre Sauvageot and Jany Jeremie, and work with the rest of the Aeolian team (including fellow Valise Noire partner Michele O'Brien), we had such a laugh all week.
A really special time
Click on image to enlarge
A beautiful and inspiring show
Out on site I even managed to write a poem, rather than describing what it was or what I did I think this captures the experience best. The rhyming scheme is a bit all over the place - I've only just noticed that when typing it up! But it reads okay ... I guess it is a real reflection of the feel of the experience ... I was 'in the now'.
The Aeolian Path
by Hazel Evans
Of the Earth and seas
And a glimpse of the breeze
The Orchestra plays it's turn.
One stepping foot on the path of a book
And the notes float away no concern.
Dancing the slalom of twinkled chimes
The band marches a fine line
Between where the sky ends and the sea begins
And the memories we leave behind.
The path leads the score
Through an invisible door
And into a valley so deep,
Whispered silent voices singing the choices
Give us new memories to keep.
There is no beginning, there is no end,
Just somewhere in between,
As the wind pipes the cellos
the drums sound their bellows,
Once gone and we're never seen.
Released in the air, the winds gather the notes,
Over cliffs the Orchestra flies.
Setting afloat, no need for a boat,
The music is released to the skies.
This is a piece of free writing I did whist an Aeolian. I am aiming on doing more free writing, it's interesting to see where the mind and pen take you.
Free writing on Harmonic Fields - unedited - By Hazel Evans
And so they spoke to us, the Aeolian winds flew over seas on the back of a gull, flighting, gliding up against the rock of the cliff. Skipping on the flickers of water rising off the rippling tide, wide, astride they travelled far on the water's story. A path of darkness, black and blue, a path I though I'd taken before, it was one I thought I knew. The ocean opened and the seas unfolded, and inside, the stories were all rolled up, in a cavern locked tight with only one key, that was lost for a lifetime, it was there but no-one could see. They stepped on down the seabed floor and walked all the way until they reached a frozen door. The ice built a lock in the waters cold, the stories were behind it frozen untold. For year on year they wondered who could tell of the spell and how to break it and where was the wishing well. In the depths of the blue, the silent life froze, gliding in time, laid stillness in the mill-ness the pond arose. The churning and turning awoke from below, as the earth shuddered and opened a crevice to show what had always been there but always not seen left up to us to reveal the screen.
Rehearsing the moves and costume on site!
This is a film posted on You Tube by a member of the audience ... I think there were almost 15,000 visitors in 10 days! - That's me dancing at the end!!
