OPEN CHAMBER

Write Young Things Introducing Open Chamber

OPEN CHAMBER is a platform for both established and emerging composers and also for artists from other disciplines. Each event is carefully curated around a theme. By co-existing side by side in the same performance space, with a common theme binding these various art forms, the evening serves as a creative hub for audiences and performers of all genres explore and connect.

We are currently working around the theme 'Call & Response' for which we are asking people to explore their immediate reaction to a piece of music, visual art, written or spoken word. These responses are circulated to our audience with the idea that they propel the listener more immediately into the performance. Below you can read a response from Write Young Things, a collective of young women based in London who are exploring their writing with regular meetings to collaborate and inspire. Each response that was shared was so different, giving us many different entry points into our own listening.

Poetry response to MACHINE - Matt Collins by Holly Graham

Siren the discord

First low and long

A yawn of horror?

Eyes closed

Stretch it out

Elastic slow-mo

She draws

An achy unsheathing

Of muscle tension

Moving in increments

Minute.

To pull back

As if in dance

To arch and

Push off against cold concrete

In exaggerated gesture.

A leap, rather than a step.

And now in flight

Holding breath

Caught in the throat

A pause

Before the spell is dispelled

And gravity takes hold once more

Fluidity crumbles

In gurgled babble

Before the shift which startles

Conjures marvels

Before the trembles

The lactic acid shakes and spasms

The back and forth

The shake and shudder

Before time as is

As was

Now as we know it

In rush hour

Again

For hardened city dwellers

Scrub it back

Through gargle

And slow