Composition #1: Ritual

Ritual1

1.
Fist bump, power circle
Break a leg, sing to dead hare.2

2.
Pound a drum
Shake bells, rattles, shells
Walk through the audience.3

3.
All seated loosely in a circle, each player shall write or draw on each of the ten fingernails of the player on his left.
No action or sound is to be made by a player after his fingernails have received this writing or drawing, other than music.4

4.
Mimicry of gesture.

5.
Measured in number of breaths.

6.
The moment between starting and stopping.

7.
Arms length
Eye level
Head height
Underfoot.

8.
Wedding video shot during a dust storm.5

9.
Tape duplicating marathon.

10.
Incense, pigment, water, sound.6


1 Rituals must give the impression that they have (always) been repeated
(paraphrasing Eisenberg).

2 A proposal for a live art ritual (as opposed to a theatrical one), after Beuys.

3 After Mwata Bowden (a composer, and member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians)

4 From Richard Reason’s proposed Improvisation Rite from the Scratch Orchestra Draft Constitution (Cornelius Cardew)

5 See Mat Riviere’s Accident Book blog.

6 After Rolf Julius.