WE ALL FALL DOWN
Recently landed: We All Fall Down
Gracia’s written response to Lucy Guerin Inc’s annual commissioned triple bill program, PIECES, especially for Fjord Review.
To fell a tree, after determining the fall path, you need to make a notch in the side of the trunk with your chainsaw. Make a horizontal cut a third of the way through the trunk, and a bore cut on the opposite side to weaken the tree, but not cause it to fall over, yet. Hammer in wedges into your bore cut, and cut through the remaining portion. If you’ve followed the steps correctly, you’ll hear the tree crack as she falls over towards the notch. You can turn off your chainsaw now. If you know how to tie a timber hitch knot, ideal for cylindrical forms, like that of a felled tree, you can proceed to secure the trunk. And if you are choreographer and performer, Luke George, you can then suspend the trunk horizontally overhead in the foyer of the Substation, setting the tone for Lucy Guerin Inc’s annual commissioned triple bill program, PIECES, whose mission is to “unveil, defy and inspire.”
I have never felled a tree, but I campaign for ending logging in old growth forests nationally. I know little of knots, so I cannot tell you if this particular trunk is secured by a half hitch or a slipped buntline, but George, a self-described rope obsessive, does. The bright yellow rope around either end of the trunk strikes a forlorn note: what have we done to nature? With Fell, George traces a path to Tasmania / lutruwita, with an emphasis upon the impacts of the logging industry.
Passing through the foyer, beneath the fallen tree, I head up the stairs for the first of three pieces, Amrita Hepi’s The Read, with collaborator and co-creator, Tilly Lawless, and the promise of “risk, boldness and experimentation.” The stage is bathed in blue, the curtains drawn, and a sped-up baroque harpsichord prelude to spark the synapses commences as Hepi and Lawless engage in public-private wordplay behind two screens. Strapping on a pair of super high, transparent heels, as Lawless pitches her upper body forward for Hepi to catch, together they meet and make an equal force A-frame. As Lawless leans further forward, with her feet anchored in place, playfully testing Hepi until she says “enough” the genuine connection between them radiates. Lawless gives a smile that I read as “I would have kept going till I hit the floor.”
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10th of December, 2023
Luke George in Fell (image credit: Gregory Lorenzutti)
