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IMPRESSIONS: Niall Jones Presents “JohnsonJaxxxonJefferson” at Danspace Project

Performers: Niall Jones with Luna Rous and Jesse Zaritt
Set, Lighting, and Sound Design: Niall Jones
Production Support: Luna Rous, Grady Shea, Moqu Alqudah

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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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

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