From our group research and ideating we decided to go with the cre idea of Butoh performance, death and rebirth. That’s when, the poem, The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy was related to the concept
The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy:
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
The poem is about the change in the century where everything is dying, and a new era starts. He also relates it to the darkness of life and the meaning of rebirth through different metaphors.
While trying to understand the poem we started to select phrases which we felt were eye catching and can be an inspirational during our upcoming stages. Some of the selected phrases are:
Selected Phrases
Paragraph 1:
Spectre-grey
Made desolate
Broken lyres
Haunted night
Household fires
Paragraph 2:
Century’s corpse outleant
Death-lament
Pulse of germ& birth
Paragraph 3:
Bleak twig overhead
Full hearted evensong
Blast-beeruffled plume
Growing gloom
Paragraph 4:
Ecstatic sound
Good-night air
Blessed hope
Little cause for carolings
A source used to analyse the poem is :
https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/thomas-hardy/the-darkling-thrush
After analysing these phrases, we understood our main concept is to be vague with the poem (not to have huge similarities between the poem and its literal presence in our work).
As weeks progressed, during one of our meetings we decided the instruments we will be using includes Midi and mixers with a mix of nature like field recordings of birds and leaf movements to start with. We decided to make it more detailed as we get more comfortable with the set up.
A part of the visual aspect of the performance, we plan to include play of words to be projected as a background. It can be a guideline or just as a simple background with fonts. It will be based on the poem with interesting font design if possible.
