PETER, dance with Lorea Burge

S3 Ep5  PETER, dance with Lorea Burge

Today we dance with Lorea Burge. You can get in contact with Lorea Burge here https://www.loreaburge.com/ and follow Lorea on instagram @loreaburge. And at the Rose Choreographic School https://rosechoreographicschool.com/.

References:

• Choreographic Devices 4 https://www.ica.art/live/choreographic-devices-4
• ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts, London) https://www.ica.art/
• Rose Choreographic School https://rosechoreographicschool.com/
• Martin Hargreaves (Head of the Rose Choreographic School) https://rosechoreographicschool.com/people
• Sadler’s Wells East https://www.sadlerswells.com/your-visit/sadlers-wells-east/welcome-to-sadlers-wells-east/
• O baby performance by PETER https://stillpeter.com/o/
• Johnathon Burrows A Choreographer's Handbook

Transcript

PETER:

Hello. Today we are dancing with Lorea Burge. 

Lorea Burge:

Burge 

PETER:

I will write it down. So it's in the description. Yeah, we met at the choreographic devices at the ICA. You're in the Rose choreographic School. I reached out to Martin to see if anyone of you would want to dance with me, and I'm super grateful to dance with you. You're working with sound and different things. We've movement and things that aim super curious about and like, have started an interest. I mean, I started in musical theater, so I know I've had singing and stuff with me, but, yeah, they seem more present, but you seem to have gone really deep and I'm super excited to see that and to join you in that. But how would you introduce yourself for people today, where you are, what you are? 

Lorea Burge:

What am I? I would say that I'm a choreographer and dance artist, but I actually find that, for some reason, I find that term a bit difficult. Like to say that I'm a choreographer because actually I don't make that much choreography. Yeah. um. So maybe I'm like engaged with choreography, but I don't know that I'm a chore. No, I am a choreographer. I don't. God, it's hard to know. 

PETER:

But But it is so common as well. Like, I think we should do a real research into exactly this thing of like, how do I define myself? 

Lorea Burge:

claiming titles? Yeah,

PETER:

not choreographer, dancer, dance maker, things. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah, but one thing, yeah, the thing that I just looked at before we started was a term that came up in this interview that I did with Martin, as we were talking about my practice. and he, over the course of the conversation, and in response to a lot of things, I was saying, kept saying that the term like socially engaged practice. And that made a lot of sense to me, so I'm going to appropriate that term now and like use that as something to describe my practice and who I am as a person probably as well. 

PETER:

Yeah. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. I think with all of the work that I doing with sound and with activism, and outside of the art world, which is also very important to me to remain connected to things outside of the art bubble. There is a. I guess an interest in going following paths into sort of new or alternative ways of being. and with sound, I think that's of kind of another element of bit of like putting our ears to the foreground. 

PETER:

Yeah. 

Lorea Burge:

and like, following our ears as a drive for creating material. 

PETER:

It's really beautiful. and really well, articulated. I mean, it's almost on a utopian practice. I would say Yeah, socially engaged and also sort of reaching out and speculative. And I mean, and what I was describing with my own, like forays into sound, it really is a sense of discovering utopias and places to dance, which are somehow have been beyond my world. Like they are somehow a new world or a different world. Yeah.. So cool. Was there anything else that you wanted to add to your. 

Lorea Burge:

To my introduction.. Yeah, maybe that, like, I'm. overall interested in sort of more DIY approaches to creating and exploring. Yeah. And that also feeds into my life more broadly as well. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sort of. interested in desire and curiosity over ability or skill. Yeah. 

PETER:

I'm so glad I brought my high tech recording studio. Now I'm joking. We're recording from an iPhone. if you've ever wondered. Cool. So let's go straight into it. Like what do you like to do today? What are you busy with? 

Lorea Burge:

So... Because as you said, like these spaces are very well insulated, Sonically, there's actually been a bit of a problem for me in like in my research. Not necessarily a problem, but it, yeah. I had the thought just earlier that actually, maybe it would be nice to start but I just going for a little walk through the building, a silent walk. Oh, yeah, nice. for 10 minutes. we can go together but not speak and just like just listen listen to all of the sounds that we come across. And then I thought I could take you through some of the movement, sort of warm-up tuning exercises that I do with people to get into this world. Yeah, which are more with the body and movement. 

PETER:

Nice. Yeah. 

Lorea Burge:

Thinking of like the body as musical instrument. And then maybe it does take a lot. I have like all of my gear. Okay. here and like potentially we could have a little play with some microphones later. But let's see how we get on with this. 

PETER:

Yeah, that's cool. So we can say, like, we're at Sadler's Wells East Studios, maybe. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. 

PETER:

That's why it's so insulated. It's a brand new studio, and it's a brand new building. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of people here. It feels like quite a happening space. 

Lorea Burge:

Now it's starting to be, yeah. 

PETER:

Okay. So when we walk around, we're going to hear probably, yeah, the building and what it's doing, and then and then we're going to do sort of this tuning. You call it? It's nice. Like, I think of the orchestra as it sort of begins to start to play or the guitarist twanging their strings and changing the tightness of the strings. So we'll play with that, and then we'll play with some of your technical gear, I guess that's what you meant by stuff. Yeah. Microphones, loop pedals and stuff like that, is it? 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah, and it all goes through Ableton as well. 

PETER:

Ah, cool. Cool. 

Lorea Burge:

It's where it gets a bit more complex. Yes. 

PETER:

Yeah. Great. I think that's pretty clear. We're going to go for a silent 10 minute walk. Tune up our bodies like they're musical instrument, and then start to play as if we're in a recording studio with all this equipment. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah, I guess like compose some sound live. Yeah. 

PETER:

All we're remembering the lo-fi nature of this book. Okay, cool. Then we'll pause and we'll come back and we will tell you about what happened. 

Lorea Burge:

Great.

PAUSE

PETER:

Okay, so we're back. Uh. Amazing. Like's so many things. I think we should just, um try to unpack it all and then, like, go through, yeah, some of the experiences we've had today and like, what is brought up for me, what is brought up for you. Yeah. How was it like to do it today? Like, I mean, I guess it felt like giving a class in a way. Like you were like condensing a lot of material into like a short session. But we went for over an hour. 

Lorea Burge:

Was it? I have no concept of time. 

PETER:

That's good. Right? No, I mean, I mean, and when we started, we said we were going to were doing the walk. We had the warm up tuning, and then we had the like electronic music. And now we even added a sort of last thing of like rhythms with different body parts. But let's go through them then. one at a time. The walking for me was like extremely powerful, like there was this sense that you know, I mean, we also had like some social interactions. Where it was that thing of, should we break out or not? And then there was more subtle ones, like the person behind the desk. We clocked eye contact and I felt like. I felt like a ghost. Like she was there was a sense of like, what are you doing, walking around the canteen, sort of cafe area? Yeah, but the thing that really captured me was this sense of, like, these sounds are always happening. Like, even when we're not there to hear them, like the sound of the stairwell and the air conditioning and then the kids in the street and the music playing and then disappearing and all these shifting landscapes er soundscapes around the place. How was it for you? What did you find?

Lorea Burge:

Yeah, I... It's always really nice. I find it quite, like, meditative to do this. precisely because of what you say, that all of this is always there and it's just about kind of offering offering the space for that to come to the foreground of your attention. 

PETER:

Yeah. 

Lorea Burge:

And. Yeah, I can get quite not existential but. It can feel quite vast. Sometimes if you start to really try and like hear as far away as you can. And like sometimes it's quite amazing if you really like take the time to do that it's it's amazing how far you can hear. Yeah, yeah And it makes it makes me realize like how kind of how restrictive we are normally with what we listen to and what we hear. and our surroundings and it's the kind of it's a real, it opens up my ears and as a result, it opens up my body. 

PETER:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's really, that's a really interesting movement. I mean, when we're walking, it's we're not we're not thinking about moving per se, but like, definitely where I put my body becomes like, super heightened. And that placement. And you continued in a way into the studio, like the two exercises sort of like blended into one, where exactly as you're saying now, like we came into the studio and our way of tuning up the instrument was like to listen inward, like to the flesh, the liquids, the bone of the inside of the body, and then like the surface, the skin, and then the room, and then eventually the universe, like, we got really far away, right? Like, planets and everything. And, yeah, I lose my trail of thought, but there was something about place or something. that it's all coming together, right, in a sort of like in that body, right, that positionional, even though it's always happening. And am I right in understanding like, we have socialized ourselves to only hear certain things. So when we do these practices, we're sort of undoing a lot of like social conditioning. 

Lorea Burge:

Definitely. Yeah, definitely, I think, yeah, we we restrict ourselves to our immediate surroundings and this is asking a complete opposite and actually kind of inviting the idea that we are constantly in relation to everything in a way. And for me, like hearing and sound is really, it's a really tangible way of understanding relation. 

PETER:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And in there is like this relation to one's own body. Yeah. Because I keep connecting back to what you had said right in the intro of like, um social engaged. 

Lorea Burge:

Socially engaged work. 

PETER:

And like I was connecting it to sort of a utopia. And it is like, we're always amongst a sort of like another world, which doesn't prioritize the person speaking, but it prioritizes everything sort of equally. Like it's it's like it's there and the body is always. like, touching with all the relations that it's relating to, we just maybe don't recognize it or we're not conscious of it. Like we socialize ourselves into only being aware of certain parts of our body or certain parts of our experience, right? 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. 

PETER:

In that way, like, it becomes socially engaged, like it becomes like a a utopian, a utopian, a utopia of a sort, like another world. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. 

PETER:

Because I definitely felt like a ghost. 

Lorea Burge:

That's really interesting. 

PETER:

Right? Like I was in a parallel universe wandering around the building and passing by people doing their lives and stuff, and allowing their sounds to infect my experience, so to speak. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. I guess there was an in the walking as well, there's an element that I didn't really go into and we didn't really do as much, but there's. To be to let yourself be guided just by by sound as well. Yeah. Which kind of can go into that more as well. So where you go is just the drive is like what you're hearing. And then going towards or moving away from a sound. 

PETER:

Yeah. No, exactly, like, because once we were in the studio, you invited this continual movement thing. And at the first at first I thought it was just walking, because we had just continually walked, but then I quickly realized that no, it was continual movement of every part of our body, right? 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. 

PETER:

And there is something, because we're listening simultaneous to allowing, like, an automatic writing of the the flesh, that it starts to find its own pathways, and own directions and desires and positions and qualities and textures. It's really, yeah, it's a really nice space to sort of Miranda. No. 

Lorea Burge:

meander

PETER:

meander., yeah. To wander about in, and what did we do after that? Like, did it did it then go straight into the three? 

Lorea Burge:

After, yeah, after we went into the galaxy and brought it back, we. We went into the three of making moving to make sounds.

PETER:

Exactly. 

Lorea Burge:

Moving, trying not to make sound and moving to make sound, but not making sound. 

PETER:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's really clear and it's like, well defined and you took us through them all together. And this is the part where we were warming opportuning, I guess as well still. That's what I'm calling it. But yeah, like trying to make sound, and it wasn't vocal sound, which was like really nice to separate from, because we're so familiar with using our voice to sound ourselves into existence but to like. like, feel hear the sound of, like, the movement in and of the body, and then to try and do try and move, but not make a sound, which is after, like, hearing so much, it feels like, this is ridiculous. Like, it's not possible. Even at that point, like, you hear that your sleeve just, like, slightly move if you move your arms in the air and then this last one, it for me, it had this really powerful invitation into how accidental sounds are. Like,. Yeah, because over the others, like, even, like, I tried to make a sound with my hand and it doesn't come into I don't want it to come almost. Like, there's something very happen stance or, yeah. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah.. For me, this is, like, you're touching on something that is, like being a huge element to deal with. Like it wasn't necessarily like something that I was started this research being like, I really want to think about this, but it's it's been very present from the very beginning, which is frustration around like the the kind of impossibility of of this task as well, sometimes, of like to think of, there is a kind of absurdity that I'm also that I find quite seductive in this idea of like thinking of the body as a musical instrument because it's like really like realistically like the pitches and and tones that it can reach are not that vast, not that varied. And like, yeah, and as you say, like sometimes you think that you're you kind of imagine that you're body will make a sound when you do a certain movement and it doesn't or it makes something completely different or you're trying to do something and like nothing comes out or you're trying not to do something and so much comes out and there's this kind of um frustration of impossibility that it was like something that I'm constantly like dealing with. 

PETER:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It's really at the heart. I mean, right from the beginning, actually, I wrote because I took a note after our walk, just how improbable and probable everything is, like, how, like, um we go outside and we hear sounds, which are so random, like, there was there's no, like certainty that it would happen and yet, at the same time, there's no other sound that should have happened at that time and exactly, like, I go to do something and it sounds completely different. And then, like, with the, maybe you can even, like, go to the last task where we're making sounds for the other persons movement or trying to capture and amplify them. And that, like, sensation of like, I think I'm gonna make the sound with my mouth. And it comes out completely different to what I'm hearing, and this, like,. Yeah, just the remarkability, like, how remarkable it is that we are here and these sounds are here with us and we're able to hear these sounds. Like, it's for granted. We're quite high up. And I had to think about, like, if this building hadn't been built, we're just above the floor, like, hovering, like, and the fact that we can stand here is, like, sort of improbable, like a very strange, like, and we've only just met and, like, that we can do these things, like, it's really remarkable. It's quite bewildering how relaxed we are with like the the sort of like. coincidental, like just happenstance chaos that we're actually amongst, in a way. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of. And these for me at least would be interesting to hear what you think, but like, these practices create a different temporality for me or like put me into a different temporality where, like, yeah, this thing like floating instead of floating. Yeah. It's kind of. accurate to a way of the way that I often feel when I'm in these space. Like in studio, in like kind of choreographic processes generally, I think, in studio processes generally, there is there can be a feeling of like time kind of stopping. But I think when you're in particularly in practices where you're bringing your attention to another sense, it shifts something in like time and space for me. Which relates a lot to, I guess what I was saying I don't imagining or testing alternative ways of being like this this for me is I guess to like link it in to kind of politics or values and like kind of anti-capitalist like approach. and slowing down time. 

PETER:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's also super absurd. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. 

PETER:

Like you say, this... Yeah, this like. alternative ways of being sort of existing, but the absurdity only really exists because there's this normative frame that suggests that we should be in a temporality and a, or mode or a sensorial relationship to the world of a specific type and yeah exactly when we go into the studio and we do these practices, we somehow, well, we break those things. And they're so simple and almost stupid, like, they're not smart in the way of like, as in they're really close, like they're. They're not a technology, that is really delicate and hard to like configure for it to work. The happening all the time. It's just a shift of attention and we're able to be in that beings. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. 

PETER:

Surely, yeah, crazy. But like, to bring it to the political, like, what are your thoughts of this place? Like, I mentioned at the beginning we're in Sadler's Wells. And we're really dealing with the place and the sounds that it has and the people that have access to it and then we went outside and we see the people that are commuting past or transversing across and beyond. And then there was even like a child on his and their parent or guardian, sort of like I was assuming maybe the child had wet themselves and they were there, like trying to clean up and the bicycle was with them and there was this frustration, but on both sides, and yet clearly a sense of like patience and endearment and they were in a completely different tempo to other people, and there were these like masculine voices and these feminine voices, some, sometimes feeling as if they're being reduced and there's a lot a lot of different things. So, yeah, how do you feel about this place? Because you spoke about DIY and wanting to. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah.. Yeah. It's... It's the first time. For me, it's the first time that I'm like, in a kind of longer relationship with a big institution. Because, yeah, I've until now, I've done existed much more in kind of more DIY spaces. And it's so different like for me it's a.. It's so complex. Like, it offers so much, and, like, I have thanks to this, I have like access to so many resources like this, you know, huge space to be in.. And Yeah. And like a network of people. But it's. I find kind of working within an institution like this, like very can be very like restricting. Because there's institutional processes, ways of doing things that you have to follow protocols that are there, that they're just like don't always align with a creative practice. And like, you know, even walking us walking around in silence, like within an arts institution, people were still kind of feeling a little bit on edge. It was like, because there was something we were doing something slightly slightly out of the norm. And like, it still kind of like looked at in a way that like maybe at other was sort of, DIY art spaces it would be more accepted yeah. So you're also kind of still dealing with like what's what's what do we have permission for? And what do we not? 

PETER:

And yet what can we create permission for as well. And the way this studio itself is so insulated, like we had to leave the room to hear more. Or like, just to give ourselves the opportunity to allow in those sounds.Cause I don't know if I could have imagined them, 'cause when we started to expand the listening outside of our body and into the stadium and outside, into London, I don't think I would have captured the resolution that we did by actually going outside. Cause in here, it's so quiet. Like, it's quite impressive, actually, how, like, insulated it is, and there's a window open. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. 

PETER:

So you can, like, walk towards a window and start to hear, but you come away from the window and it really fades away very quickly. Yeah. It's. It's a very interesting space to be in. And what does that permit, and what does it exclude? 

Lorea Burge:

I was going to say, like, exclusive is a very, like important word in talking with this because I think you know, these there's so much money that has been thrown into this place and I think there is from the people that create these spaces there's maybe an idea that the more the more expensive it looks. Or like the more like the more money again, the more money they put into it to create the kind of most high tech window or da da da all of this stuff that better it will be for those that come in, but actually what that often negates is like what that does to the people that will not immediately be coming and like it creates I think it creates these more like hardline barriers and borders between inside of the space and outside and you know thinking of like even like where we are like this whole area has been like massively gentrified and like all of like the local community around here, there's actually a lot of poverty and. Yeah, I think there're like trying to find ways to like, they want. They have this idea that they want this space to be really, like porous and anyone can come in and stuff but I think just the facade can be offputting to many. 

PETER:

Yeah. It's like you can come in within a certain, like like code of what is accepted behavior in this space, which is so interesting because in a way what you're practice is inviting is in a way like a code switching, like trying to allow for other codes to sort of like emerge that bring about new awarenesses and so on.cause if we could go back, like you brought up that word frustration. Yeah. Like, and I'm just curious, like. Did the practice come out of the frustration or are you finding frustration through doing the practice? Like, like Where does the frustration come from?

Lorea Burge:

I think the frustration was like. It's not that I started with frustration and developed this practice. Because of it. But it's it's more that like it became it became very evident to me, like the second I started practicing with these ideas that I would be dealing with elements of like impossibility and frustration and like, and that kind of interests me. I think. So I also sit in those spaces and to like not run away, not run away being, oh, this doesn't work. So I'm going to just do something that does work. 

PETER:

Yeah. 

Lorea Burge:

But actually, then what does it mean to stick in the things that don't work? And like, how do we navigate that and deal with it and like find find a pass through it. 

PETER:

Yeah, exactly. 'Cause I think what capitalism has really tort us and like, like the codes that it promotes are ones of like finite conditions, even though it's like a mechanism of infinite growth, it codifies and bureaucratizes everything into products that can be sold and exchanged and put on the market is brandable and so on, whereas and what it does it it means that it leaves out a sort of codification of things which are more porous and lack the ability to be a concise or captured in some way, and it's so interesting, like the very first thing you brought up was, we're gonna do this practice in the studio, but it's really frustrating being in the studio because it's so quiet and we have to go outside. So, like, already sort of recognizing the capture of those structures and the way they segregate and exclude and include different things. For a place which is more chaotic and more inclusive and more speculative and creative, one which I think I think that the struggle is like, how do we imagine that to exist? Like, how do we codify and believe in it when we're so indoctrinated by capitalist logic of rationality almost like, how does it logically fit into our world and have a positionionality or like a name or a thing. And yet we know it, right?. And it's omnipresent and I mean, maybe utopia's the wrong word, because utopia right, it means something that is never achievable. Yeah. Whereas what we're speaking about isn't unachievable. It's just repressed. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah, it's like changing the logics. 

PETER:

Yeah, yeah. And the frustration, I can imagine is that tension, right? That fight constantly with, like, legitimizing, staying longer, or being quieter, so you can listen, or allowing the noise and the rupture to sort of speak and enter into the Yeah. 

Lorea Burge:

And for that to be another form of like, communication as well. It does not require us to then speak to it. like that we can receive. information just through listening. 

PETER:

Yeah. I've always been interested in like the sharp inhale that, you know, like, when, when maybe it's a big group of people and someone has something to say but all they have in terms of articulation within that context and that specific moment is that hhhhh. And if there isn't, like, if there isn't the conditions to hear the ends shot inhale of, like, the potential for articulation to start to find itself. That voice is lost.. And it's those like subtle listening tours and staying longer. I mean, then you spoke about how you like to bring your working life outside, like a non-art spaced work into the studio. Like, there's also a sense of frustration there. How can you marry art and life, in a way? 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah, this is this is like something that I'm wondering. for a long time. And, like, some people I speak with, some artists that I speak with about this, they say that there is no distinction. their life is art. And everything they do is done through that lens. And I don't exist in that way. I realized that like for me, there there is distinction and there is separation, and I find that separation really useful. 

PETER:

Yeah. 

Lorea Burge:

Because it. it grounds me, and I think. And, like. I think. I'm. The reason why I like, like to have jobs that have nothing to do with art or, like, and get, you know, social circles that are not with artists and is because it all of that information that I get there is what is what is how then I kind of expand my relationality to the world that then feeds itself back into my artistic practice and my art into the studio. But to see it as art for me is a kind of. I think there's something about. Maybe this is not directly an answer to your question now, but, like,. I can find. Sometimes I find, like, the sort of labeling of, like, well, everything is art, quite pretentious. Or like it adds a level of pretension and sort of. almost snobbery to things that like. as if like everything needs to be seen as art in order to have value. Yeah. And like, actually, no, like, not everything. Like, things have value without them being attached to art and um Yeah. Sorry. I don't. Now I'm kind of lost. 

PETER:

No. No, I had to think of like how art has the ability as well to exploit the everyday, to exploit. And to extract, you know, from our lives. Like, if everything is art, we run the risk of becoming commodified and nothing we stop owning our own life because it becomes always something to give away or to share or to sell on the art market. I think it's very hard to separate art and the art market when we simply speak about art, because what it sounds like you're talking about is the possibility to be in these art institutions and in this art world brings and not to be there, and to have that separation, brings a sensitivity, right? Like a sensitivity to that relationality that you speak of. Because without. Yeah, but if we assume art is all good and it doesn't have any flaws, we run the risk of it becoming dangerous. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. 

PETER:

And by being skeptical and trying to hold onto something more ethical or something more integral to your experience, then we don't allow art to somehow run away with our lives in a way. Yeah. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. 

PETER:

Yeah. But yeah, that gets. Now we're like. Would you said your work feels very existential, which is so beautiful as well. Like, then it has to, it doesn't have to, but like, it ends up seeming to, at least for me, meet with these conditions of work and labor and 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah, and labor like labor is a thing that I'm very like. interested in and busy with in my work generally, I think, as well. Like, when I when I view things and when I perform things, I'm interested in in the process of labor being quite explicit and visible. in a way for access, because for me, it's kind of like remo removing the magic of art making and being like, these are the steps that I'm taking in order to get to this point. Yeah. Like, you can come along with me on that journey and then then go, do it yourself. 

PETER:

Exactly. Exactly. 

Lorea Burge:

And like, it's sort of like taking it off its pedestal a little bit. 

PETER:

Makes it egalitarian. Yeah. utilitarian, perhaps. Maybe we don't want to go into that world, but, like, no, exactly. And too often art does the opposite, right? It becomes about skill and prestige and why why I deserve to be doing this rather than someone else, and promotion and cause. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah.. 

PETER:

It like, to be a good artist, and there's such a paradox in it, because we know the material is extremely accessible and quite simple, I mean, in a lot of ways, yeah, the tasks you're working with is listening and considering the sounds that the body makes, not just the voice that it has, but the sounds that it makes. And then considering, how would you amplify that and allowing that and that's a very.. Yeah, beautiful. And of course, you're extremely skilled and you've been working with this for many, many years, so, like, I don't mean to belittle your work and your skill and your experience. But it does say something about how society treats those types of qualities and those types of people and bodies and experiences or even natures, right? Animals and creatures.. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. Actually, when I with this like listening practice, like, I always think of like animals, like dog, like dogs and other ones that have their hearing is astonishing. Like they can hear so far away. And so they are like connected to things so far away from them unaware and like I think it's that openness that that um I strive for in this. 

PETER:

Yeah. Yeah, it's very cool, very cool. I think, I mean, hopefully we're still recording, yeah. Was there any other things that you remember or that came up that you want to mention or talk about? Oh, I guess there was we haven't really spoken about that after the the three stages we went into being more in relation, like to each of us instruments and thinking about live live composing. 

PETER:

And we even I think, I said, we made a concert. Yeah. I always say this.. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah, that was that was the first time that I've kind of done that leading on from leading on from there and without any amplific microphones in space are just doing it really no. So it was interesting for me to to test that out. 

PETER:

Yeah. How did it feel? Like, what was it, as you expected? Did you want me to be more on the beat? Like, in your rhythm or. 

Lorea Burge:

No, no. No, when I talk about rhythm, I think that doesn't need to be. Yeah. One, there's no one way, I think. It's really nice to see like, how do like do people respond to So like, and different people sense or meaning of composition and sound. Yeah, how was it was it for you to do that? 

PETER:

It was really generous. Of course, I mean, they had those little questions of like, am I doing it right? Would you like me to be more in sync?" But I got I got the vibe. You were very generous. And so I felt like I was in tune enough. But you really reminded me of, like, sometimes I think of art making and art consumption or watching as like this process of creative exchange, and that that the fact that to compose in this way, we were having to listen to each other, but we weren't having to directly conform to each other. There's such a beautiful sense of collectivity, which allows for an openness of conditions, like the rules are continually being negotiated and made between us. Like, I would make a sound and there's no. There's no sense of like, oh, wait, you didn't go with my sound or things, right? It just adds to the tapestry and the complexity of the composition, which was really exciting. I mean, and even at some point, I think I was playing with the curtains, with the the slidy things at the top. 

Lorea Burge:

Oh, yeah. The rail. 

PETER:

What's it called? The rail.  And you were hitting the curtains on the other side or playing with the fabric and because mine was more mechanical, I was like, oh, shit, did I make an instrument? Am I now not using my body as the instrument? And I got really, like, lost in, like, where is the instrument? And where is the player of the musician? 

Lorea Burge:

Yes. 

PETER:

Which is such a beautiful question, because like, if you apply it to music, it's really like, oh, yeah, what is the difference? Like, are the hands of the instrument player not also part of the instrument? Yeah, like, without them, the instrument doesn't sound. But yeah, I was relating to your interpretation of the curtain and I was like, oh, and mine, but I felt like they had their own space. And it's also, sorry, I had so many thoughts about that part. Like, also that thing of, like, being able to drop something and continue with something else whenever, it's so, like, I I really love it. And at the same time, to continue with something and, like, allow repetition and play and so on. Yeah, it's it's it was a very rich playground to sort of be in relationship. Yeah. Because even though we weren't composing for the previous things, I was still very aware of the sounds you were making, because 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. 

PETER:

You can't make a sound and not have it part of the collective, which is so powerful to sound. And why sometimes dance feels so individual,istic, right? Like, 'Cause we you you could potentially do it and it doesn't affect the room. Like, we could. But of course, if you really listen, it's always affecting the room. Maybe that's what you're kind of like. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. Yeah, and I also wonder where there's like, in terms of like how we relate as instruments, like when, for example, like when you. you do just like a movement improvisation where you're like, thinking about being in relation to the other, but that you're just concerned with moving. Yeah. I'm just wondering now, like, what if it looks much different from what we did, which was like we were not thinking about, like, moving, but thinking about making sound. Exactly. But in order to do that, we have to move. So.. Yeah, I just I was like, when we were doing it, I I was thinking, I wonder what this looks like from the outside to do. Like, and if it's if it's very noticeable that there is a difference, like of attention and Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like also from a kind of viewer perspective, like, we are concerned with listening, but like, in order for that to come like, does that just like automatically translate to a viewer or does the viewer also need to be told to put their attention on the listening, you know? 

PETER:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've started doing listening, sounding practice in a performance I do for babies. So, like, younger than 18 months old, and the reason it came out was because they make sounds all the time and I sort of had this sense, like, because their attention is 360 all over the place, wherever, at one time, like, they're not looking at the dance. I was wanting to, like, do something which allows the performance to continue in their experience, regardless where we are.Cause they're also very small and maybe the room is 10 meters, 15 meters and we're really far apart, but that we can still be in relationship to each other. And so I had this I developed this sort of like sounding movement practice, and exactly as you say, like, at some point, I was like, less interested in the movement and more interested in the sound, but of course, I had to move to sound. And because the baby hasn't yet started to like define things, like important, more important than others. Like they don't have yet the same type of representation that we have around things. that they're like a lot more inclusive of everything. So it doesn't really answer your question around like, would an audience break the code of dance watching and listen to the dance, but I know with babies, they're already kind of doing it, and that's why I found them really exciting to do, because then they don't have to be too concerned with trying to reed educate the audience, to'cause that also feels manipulative sometimes, like, if you want to just watch, then just watch. Or should should we have called this a concert rather than call it a dance performance? Right, like. And I think that's sometimes our difficulty. I mean, I think, did I read on your website, you do call yourself a sound artist in some part, right? 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah That's a very recent. Is it? That's a very recent term that I've Yeah, I still feel like I get major impost syndrome every time I say that, but yeah. 

PETER:

But do you find the context help and like, how do, yeah, how does it yeah, how does it feel to be working as both sound artists and dance?

Lorea Burge:

I mean, I think, like, one of the initial, like drives that for working with sound for me was thinking about access and like. There's something in, like, seeing live music, that is, like, incredibly ex It's like maybe, maybe one of the, if not the most like accessible art forms that we have because I think. Yeah, it's just so many people experience music. And I really like the kind of low-key energy, atmosphere that you get at a gig where you can you can experience the art, so the music without having to be necessarily like fully present and focused on it. And that's something that I've always really liked and I've been curious about like finding ways that I could do that within dance because one of the things that I mean, I love dance, like what I've chosen to do, but like, um one of the things that I don't like about it is, but maybe this is more about theater context. Like often I think people feel, I think there is a kind of skepticism or like anxiety around going to see dance, that people feel like, I don't know if I'm going to get it or like, and there is also kind of a lot of codes around the way that you watch it and that you have to kind of be focused fully on the thing and I'm, yeah, I'm curious about moving away from that. And that was what the initial thing that made me want to start playing with sound is to see if I could get some of that lowkeyness into this form. 

PETER:

Yeah, I mean, I don't have an answer. I don't know why I'm still in the world of dance. If it's just happen dance, you know, like, "Oh, this is where I found myself or if, it actually makes more sense to bring my work through that lens, but like the I feel as one thing that I fail dance offers me is that it often relates to the experiential. Even though you're right, like music has such a rich tradition of allowing for an experiential witnessing or spectatorship, which dance has been captured by the sort of proscenium arch and forward facing stage, even though those codes are really fun as well, right? Like some people make amazing things in those. But most a lot of dancers I've met, like the reason they want to dance is because they enjoy dancing. It's less, I rarely hear people saying that they want to. dance because they love watching it. Yeah. Like, I think Jonathan Borrows actually wrote it in his choreographic handbook, like, the guitarist learns to play the guitar because they enjoy listening to music. Whereas the dancer learns to dance because they enjoy dancing. And I do believe like some of the richest parts of dance are through experience and that's why that feels like like a trope, maybe, or something, and that dance as an art form, then hopefully can lend itself to a more participatory spectatorship where listening is more included or readily available. It's definitely a stage or a place. Dance is where the code can be super dramatically different, and you can invite an audience to listen to your dance sooner than not listening to it. Yeah, I don't know. I'm now. wandering around in my talking. Yeah. But I also. I think what listening to you and doing your practices invites to me is and maybe it's that frustration thing, is the sort of desire to sort of dream of like where dance could exist. Parallel or in other ways, or these practices, this relationality, the sensitivity, where they could sort of exist in the world, in other other amounts and so on.. It puts a question mark around art as a sort of industry and condition and label. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. 

PETER:

And that's really powerful just to we can still be there in the studio. We can still go to art events and things. But to have a little bit of dupability, a little bit of doubt around it, for me, allows for an opening that maybe other parts of the world that maybe I haven't even named and recognized as places to be in relationship with things. Can open up for me. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah. That's really nice. 

PETER:

A little bit waffly. Yeah. It's but it's I'm really. Yeah, really privileged to come into your practice and, like, get to noodle around a little bit with you. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah, it's really fun. Yeah, as I said, like, I've been doing this, like, alone for the most part. So it's only recently that and I've not done it much at all but have like invited other people in yeah and to start to think of because I think ultimately like want to be doing things more with others and in collective and Yeah. It's just financially, that's always difficult 

PETER:

Yeah, yeah. 

Lorea Burge:

But it's been really nice for me to like, to test those and to test those ideas out with others and find ways to also articulate the things that I do kind of intuitively. Like, to put words to it to be able to out others to experience a version of it to. 

PETER:

And hopefully this does that a little bit. Like that's my intention is to sort of to have these opportunities, these exchanges, these collectivities, and then try to make it even a broader collective that this recording could stay on online for as long as I can afford, but that a larger collective can engage in some of this collectivity that we're experiencing from doing the practice together, and that maybe it could continue as well into, yeah, further collaborations and stuff that people can reach out to you perhaps and things. I mean, especially just to before I ask you about how to get in touch and stuff. like, 'cause we we hadn't talked about anything that we would really do today until we were recording. Yeah. And I think it's, it's important, or it's not important, but it's nice to recognize like these invitations through these episodes of the podcast is really to say and invite a collectivity that people can listen and imagine or even try and do some of these things and have their own relationship to our relationship to it. And yeah, perhaps even come and see you or talk to you or follow you somehow. So how would they do that? 

Lorea Burge:

How would they do that? Um.. Um, I have a website. 

PETER:

You do. It's an amazing website. It is It's actually a really nice website. 

Lorea Burge:

Thank you, which is more kind of like a sort of portfolio or something. Which needs to be updated. But that's just my name. loreaburge.com. And then also, I, the stuff that's more up to date regretfully is Instagram. So that is actually a very easy way to see the things that I'm doing. Because I use that mostly for work stuff. yeah. Yeah. I don't have any. shows of this coming up for now, I think. I'm doing I' an improvised performance at an event called Roadhouse Next Friday in Leeds. 

PETER:

You're right. I'm not sure I'll get it out at this time. 

Lorea Burge:

I can be one for the past. I did a show in.. But yeah. No, I don't have anything booked in. 

PETER:

But I will I link it in like the description online and on the website and stuff. And also, we haven't actually come up with many references during this. There's a few things that we mentioned, of course, like Martin, Hardgreaves. 

Lorea Burge:

The Rose Choreographic School. 

PETER:

Exactly. Sadler Wells. And I will linked them, but maybe also if you have any references that come to mind that you would like to share, we can also

Lorea Burge:

Add those in

PETER:

 link them those in great. Yeah, I'll have a link. Just to enrich it and also, yeah, I'll link to as much as your stuff as I can so that people can connect with you and relate to you. 

Lorea Burge:

Great.. 

PETER:

Further. And maybe we do another one of these and we'll see why your practice is in. Yeah. In the future. 

Lorea Burge:

Yeah You can do it one with a little tech. 

PETER:

Cool. Thank you so much. 

Lorea Burge:

Thank you. It's been really nice. 

PETER:

Yeah. Bye, everyone. 

Lorea Burge:

Bye.