Ruby Brunton

News, Performances, Workshops & Collaborations

[rubybrunton]

The Open Book Reading

Santa Maria la Ribera

The reality is this my dear you are you and I am here the lines of our communication lost on highways of oblivion my hands mottled from cold I carve the words out with a knife a list for perpetuity the red of strangulation the refuse of rehearsal the compression of fingers on skin the promise I make to only you a clip from an old porno dangling from your ear you make a scan of my body pomegranate stains on glass

I couldn’t resist the 6 seeds you caught me with

one reality gives way to another reality it’s a hard master I type out a letter I’m never going to send the archives of forgotten promises

mischief, madness, words that cut like a blade

a name that holds tension a special resonance

let’s converse with our lips the white page of new beginning

Nova Mutum

I remain perceptive           through the frenzy

ever increasing heart palpitations the revelations in    your right dimple

a prison break starts with the promise of an orgy the voices of women are covered with                 a blank wall          to be painted

the power of my enemies is dwindling words collapse in skulls

bodies tumble down concrete steps stones press into shoulders, hips

a comfort speaks, holds, looks me in the eye the hand of respite touches me

I dream of pantsless guards handcuffed      not how they like

from A Lullaby

I’m wild and raw, all in the wise never show wisdom wonderful it is to cater, likewise nurture the start of a war that draws jaws out in the midst sits my mother, milk teeth smiling taking stock as though still alive her hands give off magnetic resonance my eyes narrow tight I’m wild with the view of black penguins flinging against the brutal winds of the coast where I grew to view my minder as my everything now I have none such just sequential spirals of over its

visions of                milk teeth                breasts                      uncovered

here the bread of relief when sleep brings dreams I’m buggy not sure if I am a body all of my former herd stomping new grounds I write alone at night speaking into the silence

A selection of poems I read at The Open Book on 22 May 2022. I enjoyed listening to the work of Chris Holdaway and Francis Libeau who also read at the event. 

[rubybrunton]

Digital Collages

Some recent digital collages I made for ALive Archive

[rubybrunton]

[rubybrunton]

Cut ups & collages

I have recently been experimenting with cut ups & collage poetry

[rubybrunton]

Experiments in Erasure

I recently began experimenting more with visual poetry - some initial results

[rubybrunton]

Borde: Body on the Edge

Bodies may not have permanence beyond their borders allotted by time, but throughout life they take on a temporary permanence, in their ability to evolve, resist, survive. This is what it requires to exist in the delicate instability of the world we inhabit, its shifting geopolitical forms, its uncertain future, the fragility of the environment after so much neglect. Borde: Anotaciones sobre la permanencia seeks to capture this permanence found in the body as it is placed in unstable territory, its own battles invisible to the viewer.

I wrote about Ana G. Zambrano's Borde for Colector

[rubybrunton]

ALive Archive is a collaborative online performance and education project that I started with Sara Martinez during the #Covid pandemic in Mexico City to catalogue the search for connection and community at a time of global separation and isolation. At the base of the project is a desire to address the decline in public mental health and a critique of the ways in which the relationship to computational technology can both facilitate human connection and enhance alienation. Using the resources currently at hand, ALive Archive creates antidotes to the fissures caused by the global crisis through shared creative processes and artistic and theoretical investigation. Thank you to Arte Abierto for this beautiful documentary about our work so far. 

[rubybrunton]

For my isolation residency with Project Duna in June, I made this work Piercing the Distance based on the Zoom conference I had offered called Mutual Support for Artists in Uncertain Times. Starting from the question “What do you need?”, I took a transcript from the artists’ responses which I then turned into a visual poem. Some of the transcript also comes from Somya Dhiman’s talk on Women & Identity. The other part to the piece is a movement improvisation also based on the transcript, as during the call Ana Paula Miranda had told me she wanted us to find a way to collaborate at a distance. She will respond to the video with a painting and so the work will continue to grow.

Images:

Alvin Ailey Dance Company at Unknown Performance

Bauhaus Ballet costumes by Oskar Schlemmer

Thank you to Sara Martínez for the video

[rubybrunton]

Poetry collage by Lucia Hinojosa - Quarantine Emergency Call participant & poet See more of her work here

[rubybrunton]

Culture Diary Poem by Lucia Melía - Quarantine Emergency Call participant See more of her work here

[rubybrunton]

Poetry Collage by Mariana Rodríguez - Quarantine Emergency Call participant See more of her work here 

[rubybrunton]

Quarantine Emergency Call

Zoom Is Our New Rehearsal Room

On April 11, I hosted a Zoom meeting in English and again an hour later in Spanish with artists in quarantine around the globe in conjunction with Poesía sin muros. It was a chance to connect across disciplines and geographic contexts to share experiences about making, or not making, and thinking about art in quarantine. I made some notes during the call which I have consolidated here.

We find ourselves in a completely new situation. There have been stages of quarantine around the world and throughout history but this is the first time any of us can remember that we have been quarantined around the globe for such a long period of time.

We have the technology to keep collaborating together and sharing our work but haven’t had the absolute necessity of applying them till now. What we are lacking is outside stimulus and, most of us, space. Our stimulus is all coming from the internet or memory. Eres afortunada si tienes espacio para moverte.

Some of us are treating this as an enforced artistic residency, taking advantage of the extra time not spent on public transportation to make work. Others are taking a pause to think about our artistic practice and what kinds of projects we really want to make.

Many of us are learning new skills, from computer programs to new fields of study, attempting new disciplines in art, shifting our cultural consumption online, and creating new collaborations with other artists via online platforms. We have an opportunity to share work publicly, and many people are spending the days glued to their screens so we should consider taking advantage, without ego or being perfectionists.

This could be a great opportunity to begin thinking about our artistic practice in new ways. Es momento de pensar en qué se quiere, la relación con uno mismo, la relación con los demás.

We want to be conscious of the different ways in which people are experiencing life under quarantine, the workers who have been deemed “essential”, and still treated poorly. We want to start to think of ways to use new technologies and our extra time to think of ways to work on global structural issues and inequalities. We want to consider what art will look like and what role it will play in a future where these kinds of crises are more frequent. ¿Cómo podemos crear usando solo las cosas que ya tenemos en casa y solo con presentaciones en internet? ¿Cómo podemos pensar creativamente para resolver los problemas del mundo?

We also want to be conscious of the great mental shifts that happen to us during this time. We want to be gentle to ourselves, avoid putting too much pressure to create. We are in uncertain times, and taking care of our health, both physical and mental, should be prioritized.

¿Esta bien desarrollar y mantener los ritmos propios, descubrir cuales son las necesidades propias? ¿Esta bien examinar la palabra "disciplina"?. ¿Esta bien aceptar que a veces no quieres y no puedes?

*At the end of the call I put forth 3 propositions, one based on an exercise conceived by Alejandro Van Zandt-Escobar

[rubybrunton]

No Tenemos Nombre

Ana G. Zambrano asked me to write a text based on her choreographic piece No Tenemos Nombre featuring Romina R Soriano - this is the result

We are plunged into darkness.

We experience the brutality of stillness. We experience the discomfort of uncertainty.

Interrupting this darkness, a woman begins to light her way, body part by body part. Her journey does not lessen our discomfort, but reforms it.

When she disappears back into the darkness, we strain to catch sight of her once more. It is a relief when she finally turns on the light. Though the relief never lasts long.

She is clad in sporty underwear. She is strong, and seems unperturbed by the darkness. She must complete certain feats. She is resolute. She has been preparing for some time.

We are plunged into darkness again and again as she journeys across the stage picking up small squares of light. She arranges her body into lit squares that hang from above or sit below.

In this way, we are introduced to her slowly. She emerges and rescinds like a faint image from a camera obscura. She is, or she was. It is hard to know if this is a memory of a person or if she is alive. Or if she is bringing herself back to life with the force of her own exertion.

For exert she does. She pins herself against the squares of light, and there she holds herself in torsions and positions of endurance. She is still for so long, then she begins to shake. We are at a precipice of anticipation. How long will she survive in this tiny pool of light?

At points she reaches through a lit square. She holds her hand out, but at this point her face is obscured. We cannot tell what she is reaching for. She holds her face out, but at this point the rest of her is obscured. We cannot tell where she is looking or what she is looking for.

She watches us, watching her. She is meticulous in her movements. As though she knows she is being observed. Or because she has to be in order to navigate the darkness.

The lights are not steady. The flickering fluorescent lights of hospitals. The familiar coming in and going out of brightness. The creaking sounds reminiscent of a Hitchcockian horror.

It is a tense atmosphere, but we are not afraid. We are alert, awake, attentive to our sometime guide through the darkness. She seems to know where she is going, and in this we trust.

[rubybrunton]

Stealth Care

Pleased to announce my Stealth Care column is now live on Mask Magazine, see archive here

Thinking about work outside of work sickens me, and following rules is something I’ve never been good at doing. I think I’m scarred from having severe insomnia for which the doctor prescribed “sleep hygiene”: a complex set of instructions that menacingly proclaim you will not sleep if you don’t follow them. I’m not into being told what to do, and I’m not into being threatened. Though, I did attempt sleep hygiene for a few ill-fated weeks. Ran myself ragged trying to remember to avoid caffeine, “stressful activities,” using my bed for anything other than sleep and sex (which meant cutting myself off from the joys of supine snacking and movie-watching), and the worst – if you’re in bed and you can’t sleep go sit in another room and read something boring like the phone book. The phone book?? It’s bad enough I can’t sleep, and now you want me to read the phone book?

[rubybrunton]

Bodies de Sangre

garden performance, 04/25/15

[rubybrunton]

sibyl of cumae: i can no longer make you smile, iteration, 1.12.15

a performance woven with themes of aging, the passing of time and the importance of ritual in female self care.

text written and performed by ruby:

Song of the Sybil I wrote prophecies on oak leaves One letter per leaf The wind came & blew them away I would not reassemble them You wanted me. I loved you.  You wanted me & I knew it would only be once. You offered me life in exchange for flesh You would breathe life into me for eternity  Now I live under a bell jar my human form is shrinking you said I asked for this I forgot to be specific You spat out your gum & it went right in my mouth You spat out your tobacco & it went right in my mouth You spat out tasting wine & it went right in my mouth Everything you spat out went right in my mouth I don’t know how to leave this place I can’t make myself beautiful anymore I’m too small to reach my hair I can’t make you smile any more Is death the only way out The years are stretching Time is fleeting When you don’t know when it will end There’s a reason they say warpaint there’s a reason I can’t see past these walls there’s a reason no one visits me I don’t visit anyone I don’t smile any more This glass is not reflective Except I’m looking inside  When I was young  My mother always used to say “Run a brush through your hair!” before I left the house you took my brush away you took my paints away you took my coal away you took away my desire to use them I thought this is what I wanted. I forgot to specify. I am a woman. Eternal youth is the expectation. I am a woman. Fear of aging is the expectation. Your last stroke of cruelty could be undone with one brush stroke Your last stroke of cruelty could be undone with one flick of paint. I denied you because I loved you I couldn’t bear to have you & have you blow away like my oak leaves I loved you more than I loved my brush I loved you more than I loved my paints I loved you more than I loved my coals I loved you more than I loved myself Now I pick up my brush I pick up my paints I pick up my coals I pick myself up

performance in collaboration with ruby brunton

film in collaboration with sarah sitzler

a winter night’s art party and benefit

curated by forward flux

theaterlab, garment district

video and image documentation in process—

Sybil of Cumae performance collaboration