Dedications to Gravity

An inscription, a form of words, a formation, falling, pulling.

During the Wake festival at the ]performance space[ in Folkestone a small group of us performed dedications as a way of tracing experiences of the artworks through the town, across the artists and with the environments. Writing dedications is an attempt to expand the experiences of a performance, and during the festival dedications were usually created in the 24 hours after viewing a work. This is the final dedication to the works in Wake.

This text was  crafted in reflections after the festivals end, it is not my intention to record what happened but to trace lines out beyond the immediacies of bodies in front of bodies into the landscapes of thoughts and feelings beyond. It was in the wake of the festival that this final dedication came into the light.

This text engages with Simone Weils notions of gravity and grace, to ask “What kind of attention is offered in a dedication? What kind of dedication is required of our attention?”

Wake, to become awake, to arise, is a composite of old English, Wacu, related to watching, and Old Norse, Vaka, meaning vigil, relating to wakefulness; wake is a track left by a moving ship, wake is holding a vigil.

(States of Wake) was a live critical writing project that took the form of dedications as moments of critical attention, unfolding as part of WAKE Festival in Folkestone. This book, edited by Diana Damian Martin, is a document of that process and an exploration of the gesture of dedicating performance.

(States of) Wake features contributions from Bean and Benjamin Sebastian, Selina Bonelli, Richard Hancock and Traci Kelly (Hancock and Kelly), Madeleine Collie, Jennie Klein, Esther Neff, Problemdog, and Sheaf + Barley.

]performance s p a c e[, 2018. 104 pages, 21 cm x 15 cm.