If the ocean were ill, would she weep? If clouds were riddles,, would we listen? If a sailor survived a sirens song, would words adorn the saline tongue?
Callings is a poetic homage to the sirens of the sea. Inspired by the challenge of climate change it speaks in transformational metaphors using the craft of acrobatic stiltwalking. The ghost of a sea captain and the primal siren of the sea confront the sailors of commerce, seducing them into the awakening that the ocean is a living being.
‘Whose words are these when no one speaks?’ mutters the ghost of a sea captain meandering on the sea floor. The siren sings in return… ‘What might you see when you close your eyes?’ An uneasy truce evolves between the eternal and the forgotten, together they conspire to foment a salt-coated cocktail of whispers, warnings and invocations conjured with the watery wrists of ceaselessly undulating waves. A tempest to tame the fools that fashion the world for profit. Above them sailors ply the seas of commerce, turning the wheels of industry….ignorant of the storm brewing in the depths they float upon. A transformative contagion is bubbling up from the depths as the ghost captain returns in Rimbaud’s drunken boat to the frigates of commerce seducing sailors into sirens with songs of salvation from the rising waters…the sea is alive! Alive you see! Alive like you! And Alive like…