The Girls of Llanbadarn

Watching the BBC programme My Life in Verse I was introduced to the following poem by the fourteenth century poet Dafydd ap Gwilym. It struck me because of its very contemporary expression of feeling and because Llanbadarn church is only a few minutes walk from where we're living. Tomorrow Anthea and I will be visiting Strata Florida Abbey where, according to tradition, Dafydd ap Gwilym is buried.

The Girls of Llanbadarn

I am bent with wrath,
a plague upon all the women of this parish!
for I've never had (cruel, oppressive longing)
a single one of them,
neither a virgin (a pleasant desire)
nor a little girl nor hag nor wife.
What hindrance, what wickedness,
what failing prevents them from wanting me?
What harm could it do to a fine–browed maiden
to have me in a dark, dense wood?
It would not be shameful for her
to see me in a bed of leaves.

There was never a time when I did not love —
never was any charm so persistent —
even more than men of Garwy's ilk,
one or two in a single day,
and yet I've come no closer to winning one of these
than if she'd been my foe.
There was never a Sunday in Llanbadarn church
(and others will condemn it)
that my face was not turned towards the splendid girl
and my nape towards the resplendent, holy Lord.
And after I'd been staring long
over my feathers across my fellow parishioners,
the sweet radiant girl would hiss
to her campanion, so wise, so fair:

'He has an adulterous look —
his eyes are adept at disguising his wickedness —
that pallid lad with the face of a coquette
and his sister's hair upon his head.'

'Is that what he has in mind?'
says the other girl by her side,
'While the world endures he'll get no response,
to hell with him, the imbecile!'

I was stunned by the bright girl's curse,
meagre payment for my stupefied love.
I might have to renounce
this way of life, terrifying dreams.
Indeed, I'd better become
a hermit, a calling fit for scoundrels.
Through constant staring (a sure lesson)
over my shoulder (a pitiful sight),
it has befallen me, who loves the power of verse,
to become wry–necked without a mate.

Text: www.dafyddapgwilym.net

I think there's something growing in there ...

[This is our laundry]

Performance Theology

[Salat - Wikipedia]

I've just read an article by Peter Civetta in the Spring 2008 edition of Performance Research entitled 'Body/Space/Worship: Performance Theology and Liturgical Expressions of Belief'. In it Civetta explores the relationship between performance and theology through two case studies: the first being the practice of Jum'ah Prayer in the Al-Nur Mosque in New York and the second looking at the impact of spatial layout on liturgical experience at Grace Episcopal Church in Chicago.

Discussing the first, Civetta observes that the possible meanings of the physical actions in salat (prayers) are rarely (if ever) speculated upon by Muslim believers; the actions are simply learnt and then reproduced. Civetta suggests that a result of this is that Muslims remain open to the experience of the actions: "Without recourse to definitive judgements as [to] what the movements represent, they must sit and experience them for what they are." (9) Reflecting further on this Civetta explains,

From this experience, I gain increased recognition of belief as not wholly thought, not a solely conscious and intellectualized process of discernment and acceptance (or rejection). Performance theology lives as a bodily function; how these people choose to live their lives is in part dictated by what they learn from their bodies (not their minds) in the act of prayer [...] Belief not only gets expressed by the body - an aftereffect of previously determined ideas - but comes from the body as well. (10-11)

With the example of Grace Episcopal Church Civetta comments on the restrictive nature of the building's spatial layout. Built in an English Gothic Revival style between 1898 and 1905 the church is a large and imposing structure that attempts in some way to reproduce the grandeur of European cathedrals. According to Civetta, the physical dimensions of the church - the sheer distances between floor and ceiling and from end to end - suggest "an epic God and a distant God", circumscribing the notion of God as Abba (Daddy). After discussing the positions and features of the high altar, pulpit and baptismal font Civetta turns to briefly discuss the lived experience of the space, commenting that in the weekly life of the congregation the space itself mitigates against intimacy and communality and instead "puts the emphasis for worship on individuality and visuality." (16) He summarises:

In this way, spatiality at Grace Church possesses its own performance theology, and that performance theology has determined to a large extent the possible performance theology of the worshiping congregation. (17)

It's an interesting article and does outline approaches for other performance scholars to take when exploring religious experience; the suggestion to avoid simply theatricalizing liturgy but to take into account its status as worship is a helpful one. At the same time I'm also uncomfortable with the way Civetta uses the term 'determined' in the sentence I've quoted above; can spatiality or architecture actually determine anything? In his analysis he places a great deal of importance on spatiality without, perhaps, taking into account wider sociocultural, historical and theological contexts that might also reinforce the influence of space on the lived experience of the congregation.

Finally, reading this article through my own particular 'binocular' view - as a Christian and a performance scholar - I also take it as a challenge to re-examine my own 'performance theology', considering how what I do necessarily impacts upon what I believe and how, in the knowledge of this, I might instead seek to enact a more 'faithful' performance.

Meta-thinking

From "101 Things I Learned in Architecture School":

The most effective, most creative problem solvers engage in a process of meta-thinking, or "thing about the thinking." Meta-thinking means that you are aware of how you are thinking as you are doing the thinking. Meta-thinkers engage in continual dialogue of testing, stretching, criticizing, and redirecting their thought processes.

Plynlimon

[On top of Plynlimon (725m) highest mountain in mid Wales]

3 Conferences: 3 Abstracts

Here's three conferences I'll be attending over the (northern hemisphere) summer, with the abstracts for the papers I'll be giving:

1. Living Landscapes (18th-21st June, Aberystwyth)

Terrains of Power: Performing Parliamentary Architecture

In The Symbolic Uses of Politics (1964) Murray Edelman notes that, “The appropriateness of act to setting is normally so carefully plotted in the political realm that we are rarely conscious of the importance or ramifications of the tie between the two.” (99) This statement is nowhere more relevant than when considering the design, construction, and use of parliamentary buildings and precincts.

Such buildings and precincts perform various symbolic functions: they help to construct a sense of national identity, to represent the processes of government, and to assert the authority and legitimacy of the state. More immediately however, at the level of spatial program and built form, they also promote and entrench certain possibilities for movement and interaction whilst discouraging others. In this respect they exert a material influence on the way in which government operates and the way in which the public interacts with it.

In this paper I apply interpretive strategies drawn from Performance Studies to examine two recently constructed precincts: the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood (2004) and the Welsh Senedd on the shore of Cardiff Bay (2006). By focussing on the performative relationship between bodies and the environment I seek to build on existing studies of civic space and capital city design and, in doing so, to assess the extent to which the design of these new precincts might remain “closely tied to political forces that reinforce existing patterns of dominance and submission.” (Lawrence J. Vale 1992:10)

2. Performance Studies International: "Misperformance: Misfiring, Misfitting, Misreading" (24th-28th June, Zagreb)

Duplicitous Sites: Misperforming Parliament

In The Symbolic Uses of Politics (1964) Murray Edelman notes that, “The appropriateness of act to setting is normally so carefully plotted in the political realm that we are rarely conscious of the importance or ramifications of the tie between the two.” (99) This statement is nowhere more relevant than when considering the design and use of parliamentary buildings and precincts.

In this paper I investigate how the ostensive signification of modern parliamentary buildings can be undercut or exposed by practices that naively or deliberately misperform them. Viewed against a variety of protest actions, this paper focuses on the impromptu performance of the choral piece Lament in the foyer of Australia’s New Parliament House on the 18th March 2003. Performed by a choir of one hundred and fifty women who simply walked into the building unnoticed, Lament was timed to coincide with the then Prime Minister’s announcement of Australia’s commitment of troops to the imminent war in Iraq. Through a close examination of performers’ experiences of Lament I will consider the productiveness of this action in exposing how modern parliamentary architecture remains “closely tied to political forces that reinforce existing patterns of dominance and submission.” (Vale 1992:10)

3. International Federation for Theatre Research: Theatre Architecture Working Group (12th-18th July, Lisbon)

Architecture, Audience and Desire

This paper will argue that audiences are not only constructed through their interaction with theatre auditoriums and stages, but also through the relations between an auditorium and the other spaces known or presumed to exist. The popularity of ‘behind-the-scenes’ tours, ‘backstage’ musicals and plays and actors’ memoirs are all evidence of a western cultural fascination with the actual and imagined realms that lie hidden beyond the stage. Such a fascination derives in part from the spatial delineations that mark out theatre space from everyday social space, backstage from front-of-house, and auditorium from stage. The delineations that separate out the spaces used by spectators and practitioners in more traditional theatres are significant because they create what Alice Rayner has described as “a geometry of seeming difference.” This geometry, Rayner suggests, “carries a powerful affect that connects actual spaces to a more general form of aggression and desire.” (2002: 539)

In this paper I will examine how the geometry that Rayner describes is negotiated in the design and use of a number of more modern theatres in Australia and the United Kingdom. Through this I seek to map out dimensions of the relationship between theatre audiences and theatre architecture and suggest how being an audience to theatre involves a tension between a desire for access to the more hidden realms and operations that sustain a performance and a desire to be denied that access.

Autumn comes to Aber.

Today, walking home along the Plas Crug, it dawned on me that autumn had arrived. Like spring earlier in the year I'd noticed it coming - the green of the leaves on Penglais hill has been slowly draining away - but suddenly I'm aware that it is here, now; leaves are blowing about the streets, the flags on the prom have been taken down, and the light is increasingly slipping from each day.

So much is happening back home at the moment - engagements and weddings, babies, sickness - that Anth and I are feeling curiously unsettled here. It is good to be here and out of the innumerable places we could be we do feel that it is the right place to be. But we don't have any roots in this place with its strange rhythms and practices. For me it is all too easy to throw myself into work and into the immediacy of teaching and administrative tasks. But then anything concerned with the longer term gets pushed to the periphery. This is a concern.

[Plas Crug]

[Plas Crug]

Anthea by the Sea

Dancing with Strangers

I've finally started reading Dancing with Strangers by Inga Clendinnen, almost five years after it was first published (in other words, five years too late). I've come to it having just read Kate Grenville's The Secret River, which tells a fictional historical tale of the clash between the British and the aboriginal people of the Hawkesbury River in the late 18th century. There is something about the histories and narratives of early colonial Australia that I find I'm drawn to, even though the sense of loss in these tellings and re-tellings can be unbearable; perhaps it is an interest in origins or an attraction to the tragic. I think it is also a curiosity of wanting to know what it was like to live then in such a strangely different (to British eyes) place.

Clendinnen's writing is so strikingly clear and her interest in the ethnographic, as well as the historic, engages with the confusions and the fog of life as it is lived. This follows in the vein of Greg Dening's account of the mutiny - and aftermath - on the Bounty in Mr Bligh's Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theatre on the Bounty (1992). Clendinnen writes in her 'Introduction' (p.3):

Historians' main occupational hazard is being culture-insensitive, anthropologists' is insensitivity to temporal change. Both can be insensitive to the reciprocating dynamic between action and context. Together, however, they are formidable, and in my view offer the best chance of explaining what we humans do in any particular circumstance, and why we do it.

I'll post a few more choice quotes over the coming week ...

I have joined facebook

I have finally succumbed to the cult of facebook.

Down by the sea

[Anth's photo of the Old College, taken from the tower of St Michael's.]

Where have my summer holidays gone? It was such a perfectly clear day today and the waters of Cardigan Bay were like a lake. I was down at the seafront waiting for a staff meeting in the 'High Victorian' Old College, an elaborate (and idiosyncratic) pile that was originally built as a hotel. It was so quiet at around 10.30 that I could hear the engines of small boats way out in the bay. The weather was so good today you could almost be fooled into thinking that it was actually summer and not the beginning of autumn. But the students are coming ... and there are classes to plan.

TV Licensing

Anth and I don't have a television. We were recently offered one by some neighbours who are 'upgrading' and this tempted us for a little while, but we said no. We do watch DVDs and stream programmes via BBC iPlayer and whatever is available from the ABC (iView is blocked internationally).

If we were to get a television then we would have to get a TV License, which costs £139.50. Even if we didn't have a TV but watched programmes "as they are being shown" then we would need to pay for the license. This does seem an especially retrograde method of funding the BBC, especially when you realise how appallingly inefficient the whole system is and how laughable some of the license 'discounts' are.

When we stayed in student accommodation the post boxes were literally overflowing with a constant stream of letters from TV Licensing demanding that 'The Occupier' of each unlicensed flat pay for a license or risk being fined. Now most of the flats were genuinely unoccupied, so the letters just accumulated.

At our current address we have already received a couple of letters, each demanding an immediate response. Despite the fact that I've already been in contact to state that we don't have a TV, TV Licensing are unable to record this, or to stop the letters arriving until an inspector has been here to check. In fact, they can't even take down my name. And when might the inspector arrive? "Maybe in six weeks, maybe in six months" replied my helpful telephone operator, "it's an automated system" he added, doubtfully. So the wastage of paper and money goes on!

The thing I find really funny is that if I only own a black and white TV then I only need to pay a percentage of the cost, £47.00. Furthermore, if I am sight impaired or blind then I receive a 50% discount! Apparently, if you make it to the age of 75 then you don't need to pay for a license at all - a worthy reward for years of service to the nation.

Things to do, things to do

[Plas Tan y Bwlch]

It is almost the end of the week, a week that seems like one long scramble to get everything ready before the start of the new semester. Of course if I wasn't so finicky about formatting all my unit outlines and course readers then everything would take a quarter of the time it does. But then I wouldn't have such beautiful documents, right? And students really appreciate that, don't they?

I suspect it is all just a new form of procrastination. I've noticed that I really enjoy doing paperwork and administration - answering emails, entering marks - because you can easily complete a task and then tick it off. Done. This is the opposite of doing research, or writing an article which drags on forever and involves actual thinking. Its a real pity the latter are such a vital part of my job.

Today, just when I thought I everything settled and ready to roll, I had a conversation in which it became apparent that in fact there was something else to do that I didn't know was mine to do. 'Yes,' I stated, 'I'll get on to that right away'. I then asked a few questions that cleverly disguised how little I actually knew, whilst still delving for an answer. This is rather easy to do as an Australian. It feels natural to make statements which conclude in an upward inflection, thereby mysteriously morphing them into questions.

This reminds me of the habit everyone has here of greeting each other with the question, 'Alright?', to which you are meant to answer 'alright'. I haven't got the hang of this yet, so when people look at me and ask 'alright?' (often with a look of genuine concern on their faces) I immediately freeze, thinking, 'Do I look upset? Is there something wrong with my clothing/hair/facial expression?' This especially catches me first thing in the morning when I arrive sweaty from a brisk walk up the hill, inspired (and slightly deafened) by Bon Jovi screaming into my head that 'It's my life/it's now or never' and come face to face with a well-meaning colleague who stumps me with 'alright?' Yes, yes ... I'm fine really, I am.

And what does the picture of Plas Tan y Bwlch (in Snowdonia National Park) have to do with any of this? On Monday and Tuesday I'll be staying there as part of the induction to my Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education (PGCTHE).

Ten things we like about Aber (despite the rain)

[Aberystwyth from Constitution Hill - EG]

It has been raining for the past little while now ... so much so that we can't remember the last day it didn't rain. Maybe it was in August? That explains why everything is so green. Now, as the green tends towards more autumnal colours, Anth and I reflect on things we like about Aber after living here for just over six months (in no particular order!):

1. The sea: its just over there ... (we're pointing)
2. The community at St. Mikes.
3. Frequent invitations for a 'nice' cup of tea.
4. Walking home for lunch.
5. The blatant display of consonants on Welsh signage.
6. The smell of oil heaters on cold evenings.
7. Rabbits nibbling the university's fields on the way to work.
8. The cry of the gulls (but not their incessant pooping!)
9. Frequent chance encounters with friends in the town.
10. Cawl, bara brith, and Welsh cakes.

[This is the 11th thing we like about Aber: kneeling sheep - EG]

The Organic Welsh Mango

Anth and I have been getting a weekly organic fruit and vegetable box from a store in town, who try to source local produce. This has been great because the fruit and vegetables do actually taste better (esp. the carrots) and because there is always the element of surprise coupled with the possible arrival of something that we haven't come across before (Curly Kale, anyone?). In last Friday's box we received something very unexpected: a mango. Now, at first sight, I was pretty sceptical about it being a locally grown mango, and indeed, the sticker on it stated 'Saint Dominigue', so it has travelled a little way to get here. Also, there there wasn't much else in the box, so the mango probably cost in the vicinity of £10. But it tasted like ... mango. What luxury!

[One mango about to disappear...]

'Popty Ping': Hard Data

Emma has requested 'hard data' regarding the status of the term 'Popty Ping'. Here is Exhibit A from the Centre for Alternative Technology:

Carreg Cennen Castle

In the days before the invention of the 'Popty Ping' (see previous post) the Welsh used to hang out in castles, or, when the English happened to build their own castles in Wales, the Welsh would hang out around these castles with large amounts of weaponry and menace. Today we visited Carreg Cennen Castle, dramatically set atop a crag at the western end of the Brecon Beacons National Park. We were driven there in style (and relative speed) by the lovely Ceri who we had met at St Mike's in Aberystwyth. Now I spent a significant proportion of my childhood drawing castles and imagining them garrisoned by warrior mice (long story) so the chance to wander through a real live ruined castle with its own cave underneath was very, very, very exciting.

[The walk to Carreg Cennen Castle]

[Anthea and Ceri hanging out in a window recess]

[Anthea remembers what it was like to be a high school teacher ... in case you can't quite make out the inscription, it reads 'latrine outlet']

[On the way down to the cave]

[Enjoying the view]

Self-proclaimed Filmer Holiday

Today was self-proclaimed 'National Filmer Day' (put it in your diaries now for next year) and to celebrate Anth and I took the train to see the sights of Machynlleth. Any usefully mediocre guidebook will indicate that there are numerous things to see there, including the building that housed the medieval Welsh hero Owain Glyndwr's parliament in 1404, the Welsh Museum of Modern Art, and just out of town, the Centre for Alternative Technology. Bron-yr-Aur cottage, just north of Machynlleth, is known as the place where Robert Plant and Jimmy Page (of Led Zeppelin fame) wrote a number of songs that ended up on Led Zeppelin III, including "Gallows Pole" and "That's the Way".

[Machynlleth station]

It was a little wet today which added to the atmosphere; it felt something like being in the Blue Mountains on a sharp April morning - with the mist rising out of the valleys - except here it was so intensely green, really greeny green, as if someone had gone to town with all the shades of green that are on offer in a pack of 72 Derwent colour pencils. Machynlleth itself was a little sleepy and we could rouse no one in the parliament building to open the door, despite the fact that someone must have put the advertising sandwich board out on the street to advertise that it was indeed open. At least we saved spending £1.50 each on what looked like a rather dodgy historical display.

We had more luck at the Centre for Alternative Technology which is a fascinating showcase of practical ecological solutions for everyday application. It's situated in a disused slate quarry and is reached via a water balanced cliff railway. The top car is filled with water - the bottom with people - and then gravity pulls the water-laden car down to the bottom, thereby lifting the people-laden car to the top! While the displays on home construction, energy conservation, waste disposal, composting and gardening were fascinating, the highlight for me was learning the Welsh term for microwave: 'Popty Ping'. I kid you not.

[Centre for Alternative Technology]

[Water-powered cliff railway]

[Anth among the flowers at CAT]

[The Cambrian, seen at Machynlleth station in the afternoon. Its presence exposed the suppressed steam fanatic in many seemingly innocent bystanders.]

Copenhagen capers

Well, I'm back from Copenhagen, having failed miserably in my attempt to decapitate the city's famous Little Mermaid. In fact, I didn't even get to see the Little Mermaid as it was a bit of a walk to get to reach her. What an anti-climax, eh? However, the conference was very worthwhile, featuring a number of interesting panel discussions, and I was also able to wander about the city and take in the sights, including a guided tour of the Danish parliament or Folketinget. (I'm developing a research interest in the performativities of parliament buildings.) This made up for my rather dreadful (budget-conscious) decision to stay in a hostel and share a room with nine strangers, at least one of whom inevitably suffered from severe sleep apnea. Here follows some photos, and in case you are wondering what Anthea was up to during all this, I have also included one from her too:

[Nynhavn canal]

[Bicycles: everyone cycles everywhere]

[Canal surrounding Christainsborg Slot - my hostel was in an adjacent square]

[Student accommodation University of Copenhagen-style]

[Did I mention that Chuck Norris was in Copenhagen too?]

[Anthea's photo en route to Devil's Bridge via steam train]

What a mess!

What a mess of a day! I'm glad it's over. I seemed to spread confusion and misinformation wherever I went and my desk has atrophied from a state of creative foment to an impenetrable mound of paper. Time for a break I think. Fortunately, tomorrow I'm off to Copenhagen where, under the guise of attending a conference, I shall attempt to decapitate the Little Mermaid statue for the third time since its unveiling. See here for a report of the last time this occurred.

[That's right sweetie, just look away while I reach for my hacksaw ...]