Expand And Contract: Navigating Undergrounds

It was a pleasure to participate in this amazing and inspiring conference organised by Flora Parrott and Harriet Hawkins at Chisenhale Dance Space.

Academic conferences can easily be rigid environments in which ideas and experimentation are quashed rather than nurtured. Flora and Harriet turned this completely on its head, programming a completely eclectic programme of presentations that included shamanic drumming and LARP (much less excruciating than it sounds), interwoven with lectures on cave art and the subterranean mapping of cities.

The focus was on a tactile engagement with the subject - a sense of curious play - that undid institutional rigours and replaced them with collaboration and real, generative sharing of ideas.

Participating as SHELL LIKE, with my collaborator Jennifer Boyd, we closed the day with a live essay titled 'The Mouth Of the Cave; The Cave of the Voice; The Voice of the Flesh.' This was an experimental text for two voices that explored some of our interest in the relationship between body and voice and was interspersed with sound works by Diana Policarpo, Tamar Banai and Jennifer Boyd.

Huge thanks to Flora, Harriet and all the participants for an amazing day.