MY BODY IS A PLACE

School of Fish

December, 2022, Mallacoota, VIC

A poetic translation of one of Susannah's dance notebooks made into a song by Padma.

music by Padma

words, video, and dancing by Susannah

The following is the dance

And I’m a dancer in relief,

Ghost pinned to the wall, a photo of the sea,

Between ears and nose, eyes absorb position.

Turning I disrupt the corner

Laws and orders of space time given.

The room’s experienced and given,

Meeting my dream(s). I figure the dance.

Have it: the inescapable corner

In intermediary relief.

Covert feathers smooth barbs. I weigh my position.

I see rhythm. I look out to sea.

Form in transit, gestures cross sea,

Senses contest what’s given:

My inclined, oblique position,

Held to converging walls, a slanted dance

“Like a word on a wing,” in the wind and in relief

Radiates from the sure (shore) corner.

I repeat return to the corner.

I lap, erode, I mime the sea.

My day shapes prevent collision but no relief

From elevations, inequalities, all given

Indisputable bumps in this dance

Of coded outlook and angled position.

A shell spiral makes a pointed position

A trumpet snails ahead to a corner

Where Earth meets a bowl of stars, a dance

Of antiphonal skull practice between sky and sea

Answers hard-edged geometry of the given

Lay of the land frames low relief.

This juncture is a space of relief.

I move outside myself to a doubled position

My horizon given

Steadfast gaze moves into the corner

On the verge of a sphere harbouring the sea

Folds into my ears the cant of the dance.

It’s the background of relief, sound moves around spiralled corners

Not hearing the past, but perhaps the position of the sea

Shapes the language and the given tongue of the dance.