Come where the dream rests in the shell

 Come where the dream rests in the shell.

Word score

(a structure to be read, listened to and felt)

Prologue

(voice):

Come where the dream rests in the shell.

Do you want to lie down?

The journey begins right where you are. 

(silence)

(soft music, with a dreamlike quality)

Close/Far

Setting: A cafe that may be a dream, a memory or solely a place of thought.

SHE:

Parallel thoughts

flowing between plans.

Put on your shoes.

Don’t ask.

Come here.

(silence – as if something has ended but no one knows what)

Transition (happens in motion, in a space between day and dream; accompanied by a relaxing music)

Space

Two figures. Their voices are soft.

HE:

Suspended in history, like an antiquary

collecting traces of an era recorded in fabric,

I move in a space

where the reality that once existed

encounters the one yet to come.

SHE:

A nymph who speaks to the wind,

with a subtle voice

that opens portals

to worlds beyond language.

BOTH:

In the common space

we share stories recorded over time.

HE:

Room temperature.

Time

The narrative slowly builds.

This is not a race.

Time – resting.

Assuming that we all have our own time,

we can embark on individual journeys.

Let’s become archaeologists of our new temporality.

It’s us who – by becoming ourselves – determine

what time we are in.

In my view:

It’s best to be outside of time –

open to knowing, sensing and seeing the world.

The taste of time

(voice):

What does your time taste of?

A journey in shoes –

identical forms for both feet –

where time, through breaking,

moulds individual shapes.

Sounds tempting?

Archaeology of the moment

Crinkled cream paper.

You – wearing gloves, like an archaeologist –

gently pick up objects.

In silence.

Focused.

You are watching.

This is not yet the moment

when you assign meaning to them.

This is a fleeting moment.

You are in it.

In this particular moment.

Later

you begin to sketch general concepts.

A few steps further –

the weight of the meaning arrives.

Exhibition

(world of the form and voice)

(fragment of the exhibition by Antonina Nowacka and Tomasz Umbras described vocally, as if sung)

This is a meeting of sound and form.

Dream and matter.

Nowacka – a mesmerising voice,

opens portals beyond language.

Umbras – fabric and sculpture,

where the reality that once existed

encounters the one yet to come.

Matter and imagination.

Human and animal.

Creating together an ephemeral space

in which stories are told

through sound and substance,

through voice and form.

(whisper):

You peek inside the drawers of memory, premonitions and dreams.

You uncover new dimensions of the world that surrounds you.

Looking from a window

(my voice – intimate, slow)

I look towards the window…

The bay window next door is watching me.

The rest of the window is covered with a frosted film.

A social filter.

Installed a few years ago

to ensure everything was GDPR compliant.

From the journey, Part I

Two days of travel

separate this young man

(and young he is,

with few firm roots in life)

from his everyday world,

especially from

what he called his duties,

interests, worries, and prospects –

separate him far more

 than he had dreamed possible

as he rode to the station in a handsome cab.^[1]

From the journey, Part II

HE or SHE (or both):

Following the sound and movement,

I find myself in a space

where fashion and music

become a story.

Rather than through words,

here the story speaks through texture and gestures.

As if each element had its own memory.

I don’t know

if I can describe this place –

but I will certainly remember it.

Silence after the sound

(the space blurs)

This is not yet the moment to assign meaning.

Silence.

Just a breath.

In a minute –

the weight of meaning.

Score text: Gabriela Warzycka-Tutak

^[1] Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, transl. by John E. Woods, Everyman’s Library 2005.