Writing from the somatic body. Experiential writing of a concert composed by Tatu Rönkkö 21.1.2023. at Kiasma Teatteri.

On a sunny January Saturday afternoon, I enter the Kiasma theatre. I am going the hear the arctic nature-inspired concert ‘Tatu Rönkkö in the Dark’, where the sound artist and percussionist studies sound on a macro level.  It’s a large crowd and the audience is almost full. I find a place in the middle of a row from the lower third section of the steeply rising audience with around 30 rows of seats. The theatre is a modern elongated space inside a contemporary art museum building with deep maroon-colored, curved wooden walls stretching throughout the whole space all the way through the stage area. The space is dimly light with general audience lights and architectural square light boxes in the side walls, with the stage area in the dark.

The audience members are addressed by the staff who explains the concert takes place in total darkness and we are advised to turn off our mobile phones and not to use them during the concert to avoid any light leakage.

There is a shared feeling of excitement and suspense. Quiet conversations, murmuring, and chatting float around the space while the audience settles down in their seats and adjusts their belongings. As the light starts slowly dimming down, I try to find a comfortable position in my seat. I remember an Alexander technique session, a somatic, aligning body practice, I attended earlier in the week and decide not to lean on the backrest but to sit upright. I sense the weight of the torso falling on my sitting bones, place my feet on the ground, and rest my hands on my lap. I hesitate about whether I can stay in this position throughout the concert.

I hear low clatters from a distance intermingle with sound from the restless crowd. Whispering conversations, coughs, and bodily adjustments ripple in the space. The multifaceted clatters amplify slowly moving singularly around the space as if its rattling around the outer walls of a theatre. I gently close my eyes as it’s now totally dark - there is no reason to keep them open and direct my attention to the sounds. They amplify and seem to get closer, yet they still stay outside. There is an oppressive dark tone to them. They make me feel as being underground or underwater in a tank, submarine, or dystopian shelter. My mind wonders to remember of the theater space was described by the American architect Steven Holl as the belly of a whale. I picture us as Jonah in the biblical tale. A hint of distress arises within me. I breathe in and out, my shoulders drop, intensifying the weight on my sit bones. I direct my spine up and relax my neck. My head starts a small, round, clockwise motion from the atlas-vertebra. As my heavy head slowly circulates, I hear screaking sound from the meninges in each left-leaning curve. Suddenly I am startled by a louder clatter sound right above me, but my attention is pulled back to the body. My mind’s eye drifts between the weight of the rolling head, the squeaky sound from inside my skull, to the elongating spine, my relaxing shoulders, and the expanding inner space of my body. I notice my thumbs relaxing and dropping down, as my hands rest on the sides of the palms on my thighs.

New crackling sounds appear from the back of the room. The snapping, bouncing sound seems to appear inside the space now. The sounds of falling cracklings and clouds of exploding seed pods direct my attention to my back and the space behind it. The audience is now quieted down and my attention drifts to my own bubble. The sound slowly slides to clusters of brawling shells appearing around the space. They seem to drop down from the ceiling and into the space. The round motion of my head continues, slowly getting bigger, relaxing my shoulders. My body feels simultaneously heavy and light as the weight rest on the sit bones. Then a scratchy man’s voice appears, speaking from the upper right corner as if it is coming from an intercom or a walkie-talkie. I can’t really make out the words, but I associate it with a person from outside our dystopian dungeon giving us direction in case of emergency. The voice fades out and merges with the next wave-like sounds that are sweeping across the space, still mostly above me. These waves of sounds have a cold quality, like wind and waves on a rocky shore of The Arctic Ocean. I find myself wondering what in the quality of the sound makes it distinctly cold, and how I recognize it. I picture a hand scooping deep down onto gravel of small round rocks. The whole space is filled with the movement of sounds, and I’m swept away with them in joy. My head still in motion is now gliding onto an uneven ellipse, eights, curves, occasional tipping to the side, back and front following the weight of the head. My scull if heavy but the movement is soft and floating while finding its pathways. My spine elongates. My body is totally at ease, relaxed in its ability to rest in an upright position supported by its bony structure.

The sound composition is somehow transferred into sonic gestures of a subject’s active movement, like a person walking on creaking, frosty snow, yet still above me. Again, I recognize the climate, the coldness, and the fluffiness of the snow. The slow pace of the movements in the sounds makes me think of a giant skiing or walking on top of me, as I’m tucked away safely in an icy igloo below. The giant sits on top of me on the roof of my snowy cave. I hear and feel the weight of its huge pelvis as the sound of the snow creaks circularly across the width of the ceiling along the shifting weight.

In the next section of the composition, the human action and sound gestures are more obvious, despite their ambiguous nature. There are clusters of rattles, sounds of a round object rolling on a manmade surface, and a release of sizzling sound in a container, all of these happening above me emphasizing either their positionality or movement. A new sound enters with a rasping, clatter of an object on an uneven surface but now with a distinct background sound of outdoor space. The gestural, human-made episode ends with a man’s laughter. A startling surprise. There is someone out there! The laughter fades out into the distance. I’m left alone.

I try to open my eyes. I see nothing and notice my eyelashes are stuck together as the tear fluid has dried, as I have not blinked nor opened my eyes for a long time now.  As I lift my hand to rub and detach my lashes, I realise this is the first time I move my arms and torso.

I hear a soft airy blowing sound appearing from the front. A hint of an indigenous melody accompanied by percussive polyrhythmic sound clusters with warmth and consistency. Both sound gestures travel in the room. My body weight sinks into the seat as my mind and imagination blissfully float up through the torso and evaporate into the space above me. My head starts swaying side to side, making zigzag movements back and forth. It’s as if my ears are reaching toward the sounds to capture them. I’m peacefully absorbing the traveling sounds, being carried by it and surrendering to its motions. It connects to my association and around and above me. Slowly the sound starts moving further away as if the indigenous entity is hovering out from the room, drifting slowly into the distance. Its slow pace and long exit make it obvious the concert is about to end. My awareness drifts back to the factual physical space. I became aware of the other people in the space. I pay attention to my breath as I take a deep breath in. It’s as if I have been rather breathing sound than air the whole time during this sonic and somatic journey. The hair on the back of my neck stands up and I feel a shiver of thrills going up my back. The lights start slowly coming up.
We sit still in silence for a long time after the final hint of a sound has disappeared.

(Text published with consent from the composer Rönkkö)

SOMATIC WRITIng