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By Sarah Cecilia Bukowski
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Published on October 21, 2024
Niall Jones. Photo by Rachel Keane
Performers: Niall Jones with Luna Rous and Jesse Zaritt
Set, Lighting, and Sound Design: Niall Jones
Production Support: Luna Rous, Grady Shea, Moqu Alqudah
Niall Jones at Danspace Project, St Marks Church. Photo: Rachel Keane
a warm evening
shadow of summer
but for the 7pm dark
made intimate by the gathering crowd
outside the gates a figure appears
a figure you might otherwise ignore
or avert your new yorker’s eyes
but for the familiar face
the familiar voice made strange
rambling falsetto traces fragments of melody
drops an octave or two
gropes back
wandering
unwavering
repeated but never the same
catching your eye
breathing close
pressing gently through the parting crowd
the knowing assembled here to journey together
the wail and flash of a siren
the wail and flash of a body
they pierce you at once
passing
Niall Jones at Danspace Project, St Marks Church. Photo: Rachel Keane
you funnel inside
slow dancing your part in this choreography of congregation
the sanctuary opens up to receive you
as it always does and seems it always will
deep amber spotlights panning
a low rumbling
the mechanical wheeze of something unseen
an idle whistle echoes sharp and sweet
a tune of its own making
fragments of melody
wandering
unwavering
a sound so small
all too human
air pressed through pursed lips and curled tongue
rising like smoke
Niall Jones at Danspace Project, St Marks Church. Photo: Rachel Keane
slabs of white pegboard slap the floor
slip into place with care
a small island of order
a fluttering rain of polaroids
slow jam swallowed by deep cello thrum
rattled by drum
amber glow swallowed by tenuous dark
rattled by strobe
a sensory trance
a synesthetic merge
a hallucinatory gloam
focusing and splitting
persistently multiple
unfailingly whole
Niall Jones at Danspace Project, St Marks Church. Photo: Rachel Keane
fuck making sense
what is making sense anyway
let your senses open to non-sense
anti-sense
anarcho-sense
you bear witness
you welcome and accept
full-hearted full-bodied full-throated affirmation and refusal of sense
shifting planes underfoot
center destabilized
gravity rearranged
sapling spine rides polychrome organ
the inflatable tube man sings his praise
the object-body embalmed
washed
tended
sutured with clinical care
a receptacle for grief love life death
sisyphean tasks
abject and holy
unfurl and furl a black trail
lunge into the grand piano
leaden bones wring in elastically assured joints
floating ephemera twist into diaphanous sculpture
sounds words bodies flicker
suffused in haze
depth perception skews
a leaf blower screams
the ecstatic and mundane tumble together
messy magnetic allure
a delicious wink
the delight of knowing
secrets you can only hope to be let in on
not so secret after all
still swimming in sense and non-sense
how easily you float
you’re inside
then outside
or are you deeper within
the detritus of coherence
in the light I saw your face
Niall Jones at Danspace Project, St Marks Church. Photo: Rachel Keane
these rituals are personal
but they are yours too
transcendence
mourning
exaltation
worship
catharsis
work
fragments of melody
wandering
unwavering
laid bare here for you
you are a channel
a vessel
an essential element
you
yes you
crouched there in the dark
stunned to be confronted by a flood of light
darkness is only a comfort to the idle spectator
which you are not
not here
not tonight
maybe not ever again
shake awake the witness in you
Niall Jones at Danspace Project, St Marks Church. Photo: Rachel Keane
