Juliana Hodkinson
Nothing Breaking/No Care (2016, 22)
for one or two performers using voice, three string instruments (optionally electric/amplified), audio playback drone, some active audience objects, threads and scissors Dur. 12 – 15′
SCORE
Edition·S publications are supported by the Danish Arts Foundation / Edition·S udgivelser er støttet af Statens Kunstfond
Juliana Hodkinson
Nothing Breaking/No Care (2016, this version 22) for one or two performers using voice, three string instruments (optionally electric/amplified), audio playback drone, some active audience objects, threads and scissors
Dur. 12 – 15′
Nothing Breaking is a series of related pieces.
Nothing Breaking the Losing was commissioned by Sanne Krogh Groth with support from the Danish Arts Foundation.
Solo-performer version first performed in by Mina Fred (viola) at the Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen, 17th September 2016.
Duo version first performed in by Mina Fred (electric viola) and Juliana Hodkinson (speaking) at Kaldalón, Harpa, Reykjavik, 30th September 2016.
Duo version additionally extended as part of a performance lecture with Mina Fred (electric viola) and Juliana Hodkinson (speaking) at ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe, 27th September 2017.
Outdoor version – Nothing Breaking/Occasion – performed by Juliana Hodkinson and local/residency audience at Field Kitchen Academy, Wüsten-Buchholz, 7th August 2019.
Expanded version performed by Ensemble Megaphon at Städtisches Museum Braunschweig, 10th September 2021 and Kulturzentrum Faust Hannover 11th Sept 2021.
Nothing Breaking/Necessary Places – performed by Nordic Affect, at Dark Music Days, Reykjavik, 1st March 2022.
This version – Nothing Breaking/No Care – developed for performance by Ensemble KNM and Juliana Hodkinson at Fahrbereitschaft Berlin, 9th April 2022.
TECHNICAL
There is an 18-minute playback soundfile (a low, diffuse drone), played through a stereo/ quadrophonic PA system with good bass range separate sound systems are required:
1. For each instrument
- Sender, to attach to instrument
- Receiver, to attach to amplifier
- Amplifier
2. For Playback Audio
- Stereo/quadrophonic PA system full-range fixed speakers, linked to any device/system playing an 18-minute audio file (quiet noise): they should be directed towards the walls, diagonally opposite one another. This audio is triggered as audience enters, and runs until the end of the performance. Audio may be faded out after performers have left the performance area, but it is of no importance whether the performance finishes first, or the audio file.
3. For each speaking performer
- Headset mic
- Sender
- Receiver, to attach to amplifier
- Amplifier
INSTRUMENTS
3 electric or amplified string instruments with pre-amp – or optionally, acoustic string instruments – initially the child-violin and viola are played arco by standing musicians, while the double bass lies on its side on/near the sheet; later, the child-violin and viola are also laid down on the sheet. Finally, the child-violin and viola are lifted up again.
The instruments on floor are strung (some of this done in advance, and some during the performance) with threads of different colours and textures. One or two threads per instrument can also be prepared with knots, so that pulling the thread creates accents.
All instruments slightly detuned to create non-tonal scordaturas which are not coordinated between the instruments.
OBJECTS and SET-UP
- A heavy white sheet (e.g. artificial leather), is spread on the floor under the cups/glasses/ objects, with room for the child-violin and viola to be placed there later, and with the double bass placed close by.
- 8+ pairs of nail scissors
- 20+ cups and glasses, mixed glass/porcelain, various sizes, preferably all thin/delicate, vintage; some of them are filled/half-filled with water. A limited number of chairs or benches for seating audience (rest of audience stands).
String instruments (without bow), rigged each with 8 long (2-metre) lengths of coloured cotton thread – 2 on each string, on either side of the bridge.
20+ or more resonant objects in the cups and glasses (keys, buttons, tinkly bell, etc.), each object tied to 8-metre lengths of coloured cotton/silk/linen/polycotton/nylon thread which are rolled up in the cups and glasses.
STRINGS and THREADS
Strings and threads run in different directions, and care should be taken that the musicians’ routes walking through the space, touching the instruments and giving threads to audience members, can be walked without endangering the instruments. While entanglement (of the threads) is more or less inevitable, and desirable, there should be no colliding or tripping. Also, care should be taken that the objects that are suspended for dangling and dropping can fall dramatically onto the cups and glasses, but will not fall onto the instruments.
Threads rigged to the instruments that lie on the floorcloth – may be pre-rigged, or attached during the performance, depending on the general logistics and flow. Optionally, the performers can use resin or latex gloves on their hands, to produce more friction.
Threads lying across the floor with the ends near audience seats, all converge in the centre around the point where the objects are gathered. These ‘audience’ threads are attached to objects placed in cups and glasses on the floor cloth, such that when the thread is lifted by two audience members seated or standing remotely from each other, the objects are raised c. 100 – 150 cm and the objects dangle in the air. These threads will later be cut by scissors (the objects falling noisily into the cups and glasses), by other audience members or by the musicians.
PERFORMANCE INSTRUCTIONS
The main movements and actions of the audience, particularly the active audience, are notated in the score purely for the purpose of the performers having an overview – the audience does not need to be told in advance that there is the option of getting involved, and all audience actions are prompted during the performance by the performers, who approach individual audience members and show them – clearly and simply – how to participate.
The spoken text is divided among two of the performers, with some correspondences and opportunities for light coordination, but mainly each performer should feel quite free to let the words fall as they choose. In any case, each word should be delivered unhurriedly, in a mode of open syntax, giving space for the other players’ sounds to maybe complete a new or unexpected phrasing or meaning.
Similarly, the coordination of individual performers’ progress from one ‘box’ in the score to the next should be quite light and free – it is fine if a performer jumps a few boxes forward or back, to adjust to the way the performance unfolds in the interaction between performers and audience. The length of each score-box is entirely contingent on how people, objects, threads and words interact; so long as the performance does not lag and become longer than 15 mins, any pacing – including uneven – is fine.
2
1
►
PLAY Audio: 18 min. drone, beginning silent
ENTER, take up a position, and begin to play, arco legato, a sustained, relatively unpitched sound, anticipating the playback drone
Anticipate the interest of the audience in whether you are playing at all, or whether your sound is related to the playback drone
Let your sound rise just a tiny bit above the playback drone – in volume, or by being just slightly different.
ENTER and walk generously through space, carrying viola or picking it up from the floor.
ENTER and walk generously through space
3
Continue
4
Voice amplification is down/low/local
5
(Continue playing, or make a short break to speak) So ordinary. A little calm. Here.
Stand still and play, arco legato, a noise- tone, smoothly and softly, exploring an instrumental response to the playback drone by blending at first with it and then rising just a little above it
Continue playing
Begin to pull a thread on the double bass creating a cautious noise- tone, smoothly and softly, exploring an instrumental response to the quiet playback drone by blending at first with it and then rising just a little above it
ENTER, carrying some additional objects, walk generously through periphery of space
ENTER
Continue Welcome.
Sit or stand
Continue
Here, where we are. Ordinary and calm. So, a little new ordinary. So, special.
6
Continue previous sonority. WALK to a different position and choose a slightly different pitch/ sonority (e.g. different speed/weight of bow)
Continue
Distribute objects in the central area (near the other objects), and begin to unfurl some threads, ready to distribute to the audience.
AUDIO Performer 1 – child violin Performer 2 – viola Performer 3 – double bass Performer 4 – recitation Audience7
Bring up voice amplification over 60 – 90 sec.
What if waiting is not natural. There is perhaps some use in just listening.
Continue
Slightly change the speed and length of pulling
There is more space empty. We are full of keeping it empty.
8
All this that has feeling and safety. All this which is a system that has safety and success, all this makes a venue.
More safety. More sound.
WALK to a different position and choose a slightly different pitch/ sonority (e.g. different speed/ weight of bow).
Continue Continue
All this which is several being together. All this which has both resignation and success, all this makes a venue.
More chairs. More space.
9
10
Stop playing.And if there is the best thing to do is to pull on it.
Continue Continue WALK traversing the centre of the space, beginning to distribute threads to the audience. It shows what use there is in the whole if one uses it and if it is exreme. And very likely things could be clearer with and without our being there.
Place a very gentle pizzicato, pitched or unpitched, in between the words.
Place a very gentle pizzicato, pitched or unpitched, in between the words.
But in any case there is this little bit of us.
Beginning to take threads.
11
With purplemakes a chord change. (converge with Performer 4 on these four words, almost singing, and let voice rise 1⁄2 – 11 4 tones on ‘change’)
Begin a slightly new sonority. Begin a slightly new sonority. Light blue. And redmakes a chord change. (converge with Performer 1 on these four words, almost singing, and let voice rise 1 2 – 11 4 tones on ‘change’)
13
It shows that there is no mistake and very likely it is in tune and in time.
PLACE VIOLIN on floor cloth, invite one or two audience members to hold it down gently. Take up threads one at a time and begin to play by pulling thumb and index finger along the threads, alternating hands, varying speed and length of ‘stroke’. Get a third or fourth audience member involved.
Arm, hand, she is pulling together.
The sound of a hand if it is black and white, the second hand augmented by royal assent pulls a green string.
So then the order is that a louder way is something suggesting a point not a chord.
PLACE VIOLA on floor cloth, take up threads one at a time and begin to play by pulling thumb and index finger along the threads, alternating hands, varying speed and length of ‘stroke’
14
It shows what use there is in the whole if one uses it and if it is extreme. -
Several being together, those numbers are small, which makes them hard to count.
Holding down childviolin, then pulling threads from childviolin.
15
And recovering. And. Is. It. Is. Disappointing.
Explore speeds of pulling, and ‘accents’ caused by knots – vary the articulation
In the middle of here there is a precise thing. Her hand is leading.
A little upturned tuning (of a third) makes such a sweet singing promise and a little downturned tuning (of a fourth) augmented falls warming a round thing shivering a white thing, and we are moving (a fifth) ahead.
And is it is disappointing when. The sound of a reason, a slight change of mind or temperature and this life table octave and a half death rate is simply the reciprocal of the expectation of life, itself a widely used index.
17
Look at active audience, as if inviting them to start/stop. ON. Off.ON. Off.ON. Off.
(pause)
Continue with the same sound quality, but with a slight change (e.g. different pitch in same register). Maybe respond to Performer 1’s “On. Off.” by stopping and restarting.
Explore speeds of pulling, and ‘accents’ caused by knots – vary the articulation. Maybe respond to Performer 1’s “On. Off.” by stopping and restarting.
The normal way is to accustom the thing to have a shape and to be solid, quite solid and to use heaviness. ON. -
Not thin thin things where there may be breakages. Off.
18
Half a corner and no curve, a cause and loud enough, a cause and extra a loud clash, a slender grey and no quiet passage, this means a loss, a great loss and a migration. We keep moving, hungry. And rising.
PROMPT audience to take up the threads offered PULL gently on threads to raise the objects to them.
Engage with the relation between objects and audience threads, connecting – through eye contact – audience members at opposite ends of threads. Indicate to audience to pull on threads and raise the objects from glasses/cups
Continue to ’nurture’ the hanging objects.
Continue PROMPT audience to take up the threads offered PULL gently on threads to raise the objects to them. Engage with the relation between objects and audience threads, connecting –through eye contact – audience members at opposite ends of threads. Indicate to audience to pull on threads and raise the objects from glasses/cups
PULL threads to raise objects.
Resume pulling threads, with a slight change of approach, sensitive to how the active audience is engaging.
Dirt makes a sound darker its shape heavy and makes melody harder. (Continue to ’nurture’ the hanging objects.) It takes compassion and precision and even an act of quiet strength to spread a cloth wider to cover it.
Some audience take up threads given to them.
PROMPT more audience to take up the threads offered to them. Engage with the relation between objects and audience threads, connecting – through eye contact – audience members at opposite ends of threads. Indicate to audience to pull on threads and raise the objects from glasses/cups
Resume pulling threads on viola, with slight change of approach, sensitive to how the active audience is engaging.
Continue. (Address audience in near vicinity, especially those without threads.) There are more places empty. They used to sit. Entertaining the unbearable idea. Where.
PULL gently on threads to raise the objects 20
If children exhaust noise and distance and even dust, if they perfectly dirt a surface with play that has no grace, if they do this and it is not necessary, if it is not at all necessary, if they do this they need a toy, a game, an instrument for it.
PROMPT more audience members to take up the threads offered to them, and continue the gentle pulling action.
MOVE to double bass and pull a thread near end of instrument Continue.
Continue. Continue. If it returns, we will never know whether it was a repetition or just a timbral or intonational refinement caused by a new fingering. 21
Suppose an example is necessary, the plainer it is made the more reason there is for some outward recognition that here with or without good reason is a result.
Help wherever necessary. Continue. Continue. Check that audience is holding threads and objects up – guide/ correct if necessary. So far, so good, becoming moderate.
An occasion for plates and a dinner set of coloured china.
If the party is small a clever song is in order. It makes the pressure drop.
MOVE back to viola and resume pulling threads.
Continue.
(Slightly instructional.) Pack together a string and enough with it to protect the centre, cause a considerable tension and gather more as it is cooling, collect more trembling and not even any shaking, cause a whole thing to be a church, oven or fridge. 24
And falling.Simple.Clear.
25
26
Is there any extreme use in strings. A string that has no care must be hot and not limp, nothing a particular moment passing, no pause or passage, nothing breaking the losing of no little piece.
GATHER all threads that are attached to viola into a bunch and CUT ✄ them with nail scissors
Continue. Rocksteady.-and absolutely impossible to understand.
Continue the whole time pulling threads.
Continue. Normally. Ambulance notes say the body is divided into four parts. Head. Trunk. Upper limbs and lower limbs.
Cu,t cut in skin which so lately. Cut more than any other and show what it was.
Where is the length, where the interval, it is there and a line distinguishes it.
PICK UP viola Continue.
27
A line just distinguishes it.
What is the link that presents under extreme pressure a long line and a necessary stopping. What is the currency that makes it crackle.
PICK UP violin
-
28
A dark place is not a black place.
If everything is in white it is not necessary. Rainbows of every colour are not binary.
PRESS instrument strings lightly against threads held by audience and move violin along strings
Stop pulling threads, if help is needed with the active audience. Or continue, more sparsely.
Is that not an argument for any use of it and even so is there any place that is better, is there any place that has so much currency and no money. 29
PRESS instrument strings lightly against threads held by audience and move violin along strings. Join the tremolo.
Create a kind of cautious tremolo together with audience, and shift the focus of the tremolo between strings/ threads and the hanging objects; encouraging audience to try out small shaking movements
Help, or continue more sparsely. Shaking threads with objects dangling 30
(Slightly utopian.) Bend more accents than have ever been necessary quivering.
pause pause It is not an invitation, it is a sobering accident, it sends animosity and accentuation. 31
(Let first one, then all aspects of performance gently disintegrate from here to the end, feeling free to explore the remnants.)
PUT DOWN violin when it makes no sense to hold it longer.
(Let first one, then all aspects of performance gently disintegrate from here to the end, feeling free to explore the remnants.)
(Let first one, then all aspects of performance gently disintegrate from here to the end, feeling free to explore the remnants.)
(Let first one, then all aspects of performance gently disintegrate from here to the end, feeling free to explore the remnants.) 32
-33
Soon.Rest.Later.A piece was not exchanged, not a bit of it, a piece was left over.So.
-
Distribute nail scissors among the audience.
Why is there no time.-For me.We were glad to be there.The rest was sent for analysis.
✄
-
What was the use if there was no chance of ever seeing it come there. -
From the centre make you two one subside.
Distribute nail scissors among the audience. -
What was the use of not leaving. -
Within the cut and slender time alone, with sudden equals and no more than there, an exhalation to one side.So very tired.One subsides with an exhalation, the other rises, airlifted.
No cup is broken in more places and mended.-It does more to choosing and it does more to that counting.Does that show that strength, famously.It does, it does change by adding more water.Does it.
Identify (mentally) a thread being held by the audience. When that thread is cut, stop performing immediately but stay briefly frozen in position. In own time, release freeze and LEAVE
Identify (mentally) a thread being held by the audience. When that thread is cut, stop performing immediately but stay briefly frozen in position. In own time, release freeze and LEAVE
-
That is to say a plate broken does show that that culture is lowering its flag.-Supposing a single piece is a long hair.Does that show experience. -
It shows the whole element of angels and orders airborne fly out to the sides.Supposing more of them are orderly on that day, Does that play well.
✄
36
Optionally bring down voice amplification slightly towards the final spoken words.
This-A piece-a place, a soundI spoke. -
LEAVE
- -
This was the hope which made the many have no use for any more places and this necessarily spread within some minutes into nothing. -
A piece means necessary sound and a little revision of a thousand little things does mean that there has been a place, a sound where -you did shake, and IJust spoke. -
LEAVE
37
Optionally FADE OUT audio playback as/after performers leave.