LISA LARSDOTTER PETERSSON©
ASH and GUM
ASH
Photo, trees & movement, at this page, by Lisa Larsdotter Petersson & Catherine Magill
GUM
Lisa and Catherine met in 2014 at a festival in Berlin
After this Lisa invited Catherine to the VARIA Festival in Gothenburg Sweden.
Later on in Melbourne, Catherine presented a show responding to, among else, imagery by Lisa Larsdotter Petersson.
Following this Catherine and Lisa continued to communicate, with thoughts of meeting again.
With the arrival of Covid pandemic their connection grew and evolved into an online based shared practice of improvised movement and spoken word
alongside thoughts about human impacts on the environment.
Here the native trees Ash (Sweden-Ask) and Gum (Australia-Eucalyptus) became an “influential source” and a platform from where the work evolves.
This page is one of the seeds for the new project “ASH and GUM”, where the artists among else are planning for an exchange between their art and their countries.
Examples of writings/text from practice
(Lisa writes, Catherine moves)
slow tree trunks leaning at one another
heaviness and lightness meets on the middle
gravity do not bother them
they have large freedom in their roots
when evening arrives they all sing songs
that cud be mistaken for lullaby’s
the walls are made of paper
i am paper
i will lift my wings and soar over you
until you are silenced
and still
still i am
(Lisa writes, Lisa moves)
stones and rocks still came and went like sharp objects
from a book without poems
a government without any reason for trust
to trust
the following clown berrie
naked skin where wind sweeps away
and make way
for monsters
stainless the afterworld yawns
allowing the fall to be a fall
and falling still
(Catherine writes, Lisa moves)
A breath in a room so far away
A breath in a room makes me gasp back into the present moment
She is moving way over there
So near and yet so far
Long line curve, leaning back
Long line curve, leaning in
Blood circle carpet
There’s something primal, tribal, ritual and always there are creatures
Who’s voice is she hearing, there in her red frost room scape
She flaps and flings the space about, her invisible bedspread of distrust and rejection
Stepping, prancing around the fire she’s telling stories
Old and true from far away, her dancing comes to me.
(Catherine writes, Catherine moves)
It’s raining hard outside - the night sky pouring
Heavy, full, hard - a downpour
She’s listening for the easing, the receding
The lessening. …then the quiet
Small trickle drips and a delicate ping in the chimney flu
She remembers the sodden earth of the swamp and heavy feet in the splat of mud.
She remembers tendrils climbing up the dead trunk
Emerging through the dark earth
Twisting, entwining
She wraps herself around herself
Ears and skin listening to the rain fall
Her whole body listens out
To beyond the walls