Tongues of Stone: a Site Sensitive Performance

Abstract

As a site-sensitive dance-architecture event, Tongues of Stone sought to transform the Central Business District of Perth, Western Australia, into a network of stories experienced through movement, sound and design, drawing attention to forgotten histories and the traumatic residue of colonialisation through performative encounters. Led from the Murray Street underground to the Swan River, the mobile audiences pathway followed an itinerary of lost wetlands and disappeared lakes covered over by urban development and infrastructure. Listening to MP4 recordings on headsets, the soundscape contained traces of three different stories adapted from writings by Ovid, Carol Anne Duffy and Audrey Fer..