The pilot version first performed on 18 September 2021 at the Quarterhouse Folkestone.

Mirror Mirror was conceived, visualised and directed by Terry Smith with Lise Boucon, Sarah April Lamb, Rubiane Maia, Randolph Matthews and Ash McNaughton.

The performers all bring their own authorship to the work, developing and improvising through workshops and rehearsals. This is an ensemble work. This version with these performers is unique.

Thanks to Laura Kuhn, director of the John Cage Trust in New York and music used courtesy of Brilliant Recordings and Editions Peter.

NOTES, PLANS, DRAWINGS, TEXTS, INSTRUCTIONS AND MISTAKES

Process and method are at times interchangeable. The process since September, working with Ash and Lise is not just about developing a performance work but also the development of a method of drawing and notating a visual performance score.

HOW IT WORKS

• Mirror Mirror is a work designed for professional and non-professional dancers or performers.

• Each performer gets the same set of instructions and performance notes, followed by workshops, rehearsals and performance.

• People bring their own concerns, ideas, gestures and actions to the work

• Music: Two6 John Cage (1995) with disruption.

About the music

In this work, Cage provides two lists of flexible time-brackets as well as separate materials to used by each player as follows: “For the violinist: from one bracket to the next, 1) silence; 2) a sustained interval played pppp as softly as possible (nearly inaudible) using from the gamut of pitches given any two, using harmonics or not, but sustained with imperceptible bowing; or 3) microtonal passages from the G string up to the E (between two half steps, six degrees are notate [diagram indicated]… Phrasing, use of silence, articulation is free, but play the tones that are written only once, searching with them for melisma, florid song. When durations or phrases are long, keep the amplitude very low (single short sounds can, however, be of any amplitude). Let successive passages be for a string of the same or higher pitch. “For the pianist: 1) silence; 2) part of an ascending gamut played pppp as softly as possible, giving no sense of periodicity (depress key silently until you feel the escapement clearing; knowing where that is, play the piano on the edge of audibility), sometimes after a ‘pause’ picking up with a tone or tones earlier played, continuing upwards; or 3) a fragment of Extended Lullaby (these are chance-determined variations of Satie’s Vexations).”