Aarero Stone - Two Solos in a Performance Landscape

Abstract

How do we care for the strangely familiar and mourn the distant dead? The solo performance, Aarero Stone (2006) grew out of collaborative research into mythologies of stone and narratives of embodiment which express grief. European and Maori expressions of grief embodied in stone were researched through workshops in New Zealand and London. Through this research, processes of metamorphosis as embedded in mythology, geology and in digital processes were explored as a way to better understand and inhabit the changes we are experiencing in a new world order of global communications and terrorism. This enquiry followed a perceived shift in relations of meaning within art processes from metaphor to metamorphosis. Inspired by mentor, Marina Warner, I sought to explore metamorphosis as an energy and defining dynamic for change and transformation. The resulting choreography was described as 'spellbinding...an austere pageant of dance poetry...tragic, bold and clandestine.’ The Listener Dec 2007.