Oral / Response

A woman kneels on the floor, lays down a piece of paper, removes a stick of black charcoal from its case and crushes it in a pestle and mortar.

She takes a pinch of the ground charcoal dust, piles it on the paper, leans down and inhales. She exhales and blows it across the paper in three protracted breaths. She repeats the process working through a grading spectrum of charcoal from black to white as she moves across the floor in small incremental stages.

A woman kneels close to and facing the woman blowing charcoal. As the woman with the charcoal begins her ritual the woman facing her writes in chalk what is taking place before her. They work in synch and in rhythm: one creates a physical action that the other interprets in words scrawled on the floor. From black to white and first word to last they move away from each other as they continue their repetitive synchronised ritual. They leave charcoal and chalk as dust and text trace elements as remains of the performance.