Saltfleetby/Theddlethorpe beach To get there you cross through marine biomes: Extensive marshes (maritime fen) with samphire, slime and skylarks with their piercing high frequency calls; a Hercules jet circling, a slow grey shape dropping pearls of light over Donna Nook, part of the ‘reserve’; ducks and geese vast bodies in heavy flight, Jo thinks he sees an pristine egret? Through the slippery mud to the beach itself, a small arc of dunes and then miles of brittle rippled and soft smooth sand in different tones of brown and gold scattered with tiny razorfish.

Score: Falling to Ground - AMC, when we loose focus or connection, fall to the ground

Description:

5 stranded sea stars, muddy sea, milky sky, face you in the south east, wind blustering from the south west, feet sink in, fall to ground, then lie on my back, walking on my knees towards the sea then rising to tiptoes, reverse into the waves, using the splosh, splosh, splosh as a guide to know when and how deep, splash kick at you.
Out of the waves, back on the sand, blowing and turning, drifting and spinning in fits and starts, fall again to the sand. “What do you want to do?” I find myself asking my belly…walk along the soft zig zaggy shore into the distance, on and on, away, away, goodbye, at the end of my walk I find a shell to give to you.

Individual moments:
looking at my toes; watching a patch of blue closing; no smell of oil seed rape (it was everywhere yesterday); a solitary gull; rapid waves sound; sinking feet; scoring sand with fingertips and nails; enjoying squatting on the sand like I’m laying an egg.

Present: Jo

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I found it difficult to focus clearly - maybe because its early in the morning! – again, it feels enough that you are there, being there, sharing these full moments, just walk beside me and be my friend reminds me of St.Exupery quote “Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction” is this enough for a duet? It brings up some of my thoughts and questions about contact improvisation – what is contact? and my persistent feeling of rebellion at contact jams to explore other forms of contact and 'being with' other than touching skin, just to see.. Is intention and allowing space for each other enough?

Location: Cremourne, Tasmania
OS Grid Reference:
Date: 24 April 2007
Time: 16.30
Site: On south arm peninsula of Tasmania
Turn left off the highway that goes from Lauderdale to south arm, then on main road that leads to cremourne, a possible aboriginal meeting place

Score: Falling to Ground -AMC, when we loose focus or connection, fall to the ground

Description:

Sight:
Flat sands.
Light brown sand, not fine, slightly coarse. White translucent tiny crabs.
Living tumbling spiralling snails, little oval open shells.
Open space- a huge expanse of sky, covered with thick layers of cloud through which the sun bore gaps and streamed its rays.
Mount Wellington in the distance next to smaller hills far far away, opposite the huge expanse.
On both sides low fauna, grassy, bushes of green and brown, some areas dry, some lush and thick.
Behind me, between us and the mountains and hills, a road with occasional cars spe eding by.

The hypnosis of the rippling sunlight reflecting off the vaguely approaching water, slowly edging towards and then beyond us. The shallow waters offer reflections of the landscape around it, the sky, the sun, the clouds, the expanse, punctuated at times by my body.
The underneath of the sand when dug into shows black, clumps falling apart from each other slowly connected by white elastine hairlike threads, falling through, pulling, forming tension, breaking, slipping.
Sound:
Feet squishing and slurping and glooping in the sand, wet.
Gulls calling to each other signalling foodfinds.
Snailshells crunching underfoot, every where I place my weight
Cars whizzing by, creating through time and repetition a random pattern of rhythm, one only for ages, then another, then another, then three in close succession, then a gap, then one again, panning from left to right, right to left.
The silence of the water was deafening in its stillness.

Taste:
The sharpness of the clean cool air.
The warmth of my mouth.
Smell:
Spaciousness openness of the landscape.
Salty water.
When close to the sand, especially when dug right into the underneath of it, the dank dark smell of old, rotting, salty death.
Touch:
Unstable sinking floor, pulling me into the wet sand when still for too long, resistance of the sand to let me move my feet, build up of wet clumps of sand around my feet when dragged just under the surface.
Cold frost of the air that eventually paralysed my fingers.
Freezing temperature of the crisp water.
Stillness of the air and spaciousness of the sky, the feeling of having no boundary, walking forever, gave a sense of the body with no edge. Grittiness of the sand, sharpness when fingers dig into it, weight when hands lift from under it, resistance of its own particles at being ripped away from each other, shock at pain when falling onto the sand and sharp shells and stones rip holes into my palm, weight of the cold in my hair weighing onto my head from all sides.
Dance:
Walking in circles.
Joining her in a rock crevice, huddling under together, pushing off the wall of it with my feet.
No edges.
We are opposite each other and as we face each other we each cover as much ground as we can without moving far from the spot, reaching all around from the central point.
Hold her face.
Then….
Anguish when I feel I have nothing left to say, I can’t feel her any longer, I am lost, isolated, abandoned- “where are you? We haven’t finished yet?” torment, just want to be still, so tormented, tension building up, pulling and pushing into and out from my limbs against each other and sliding off each other sending mre reeling, until I am totally empty, still, spent… I stop, leave the space and ahhhhhhh, it’s 25 minutes over time….. had she already gone, is that why I could not feel her….

Present:James Newitt, photographer james@jnewitt.com

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