Salamanda Tandem: A Window To The World:
…During the Pandemic Salamanda Tandem worked on the ways and means to continue and transform develop our Soundwalk Into Welbeing Project, combining digital technology and somatic experience in nature.
With a substantial touring programme of performance, and our planned participation and training projects shut down, all arts buildings and organisations were closed.
Despite huge obstacles, we were determined to find a way to re-develop the Soundwalk Into Wellbeing project and fit it to the new circumstances of the Pandemic. Designed to address challenges of isolation, stress, disability and poor health, never was it needed more., as the Pandemic revealed huge inequity. The soundwalks into wellbeing were designed to improve wellbeing, and lift energies, through cultivating a sense of curiosity, with seldom heard carers, loved ones and friends at the heart, tuning into the sound, movement and touch of nature, through the healing power of the breath.
During the first lockdown in March – July 2020, we were allowed to take a daily walk, so Isabel and Geoffrey worked together to develop the technology to take our teaching, and invite international yoga teachers to teach online. We developed a full programme of classes, and online yoga conventions. However online was not accessible to everyone, and we felt it was no substitute for direct access to nature. We wanted to continue supporting carers who we knew were suffering in lockdown and their health and wellbeing in jeopardy. We developed a very small portable offgrid system, housed in a small rucksack, with live recording, and radio headphones, enabling Isabel to work solo, conducting the soundwalks into wellbeing with small group solo in our local area .
City Arts had commissioned Isabel and Salamanda Tandem to compose a new work with the Hale Orchestra, performed as a moving installation and live performance in the Theatre Royal Nottingham with older people. The project had ground to a halt, City Arts staff were on furlough. In the summer Kate Duncan contacted Isabel, by that stage Salamanda Tandem were well underway with the new soundart system, and had developed our first online convention. Isabel offered the new concept to Kate, and the project was reconfigured. In the Autumn and Spring of 2020/2021, Isabel led 10 soundwalks using the new soundart system and Salamanda Tandem’s radio headphones, in this way we were able to follow the government guidance given, of a maximum group of 6, and enabled elders to access gardens, parks and wild places across Nottinghamshire, the walks became a lifeline.
This is one of the places we went:
As part of the development work, for a short spell lockdown lifted in Sept / Oct 2020, it was possible to visit Southwell Workhouse (National Trust Site). The site was closed to the public, and Jan Overfield the education officer there, unlocked the building and arranged for Kate and I alone to visit. Isabel’s idea was to record the visit in its entirety through Binaural recording, to gather resources in the hope of a soundwalk there with a group. The Binaural recording creates a 3D sound image, and as we remained physically distanced, we wore wooden clogs, traditionally worn by female and male inmates, and children who were segregated from eachother on arrival. These powerful recordings give a sense of the chilling seclusion of the site, and the echolocation, picked up by the clogs as the 3 women move inside the building on the stone floors and staircases. Giving a sense of its frightening architecture; high walls, narrow corridors, segregation, keys, locks and closed doors, the final soundwork, expresses the grief of separation. At times we hear signs of life from the outside world, the odd bird singing, and the sound of a distant train leaving or arriving – we do not know – the isolation is complete the people who lived there had no access to the outside world and the height of the walls were designed so that nature of any sort could not be seen.
The music includes a description, taken from the Historic England Archives giving the plan for the original Southwell Workhouse building
REFERENCES
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-l…entry/1001591
Isabel’s Diary entry (November 2020)
“The situation of Covid-19 is a mind numbing/traumatic situation, it is unequal, and particularly stressful for visually impaired & disabled people, for seldom heard carers and for people living with poor health, loss or in isolation. In visiting and reading about the Southwell Workhouse, and the terrible hardship and suffering of Disabled people there, the thick metal ankle chain shackles attached to a heavy weight, to stop people with dementia wandering. Where did Disabled people go, poverty unfairly follows disability, and we know the Victorian Workhouse was designed for the poor.
Even though our situation during the Pandemic was different, only a few, could take the joy of a salary, and a daily exercise routine, others are gripped by fear as access to support and the world was removed their independence shattered. For visually impaired people, who rely on touch for navigation, their lives were shut down, as zoom developed it was inaccessible. Mickel Smithen, describes the experience from a Visually Impaired person’s perspective , and over the winter of 2020, the ‘White Cane’ team of Blind, Visually Impaired artists and artist advocates, co-developed the means to reach people and each other through sound online”
Developing a creative practice for wellbeing; designed by sound and movement artists and wellbeing practitioners: Geoffrey Fielding, Dallas Simpson, Biant Singh, Mickel Smithen, Dave Sturt and Takashi Kikuchi, as well as collaboration with sympathetic organisations: City Arts Kate Duncan, and Emily Malen access officer at the Theatre Royal.
The studio
One amazing and surprising thing about Salamanda Tandems studio is the gift of an acoustic – we could never have expected it. Such an unusual shape, and sure no acoustic designer would have come up with its triangle form going up to a high apex, and yet the sound for speech, and singing is clear and resonant, every individual sound can be heard and yet it is simultaneously gathered together in one holistic sound.
Exploring access to the touch of sound, what ancient yoga philosophy teaches us about wellbeing, environmental location work, and art for the new physical distanced environment, Isabel recorded the Shanti Mantra from the studio: listen here.
Also the beginnings of a new sound installation called Ham So सो ऽहम् was made in Lockdown 1: it evokes the peacefulness of a trafficless, moment and of silence. Ham So सो ऽहम् is there in Vedic Indian Philosophy and means a sense of communion and union with the universe
Diary Entry
“Journal of Silence day 10 of physical isolation, Lockdown. Finally the cars stopped and the bird song lost underneath the noise emerged, this city is transformed into a peaceful place. Not saying its easy, we felt extremely sad when we closed our studio a week last monday, been worried sick about money for entire household’s of self employed people, never mind people on zero hour contracts not being honoured, all arts projects disappeared, big responsibilities and wrangling with corporate business trying to keep afloat, and feeling a massive weight of fear as disabled and vulnerable people go under, as services stop. Our dear friend and social worker Biant Singh is taken off the street into a call centre alongside rafts of highly qualified social care commissioners and artists. Lewis was disabled from birth he’d have been very frightened if he was alive. Love, compassion go out ….”
Listening to this beautiful and formative binaural work made by Dallas Simpson and Isabel Jones in our studio, published by plustimbre. This was as it turned out the last face to face meeting, before our final trip to India, and our return to Lockdown:
https://plustimbre.bandcamp.com/album/conversation-meditation
We look back to the moments of contact we had with people, to try and make the sound source accessible in lockdown, even if we cannot be physically there, we can feel the touch of nature with compassion.
Arts Council Recovery Fund
We are grateful to Arts Council England, during this time, as without whom we couldn’t have continued our work.with support from Arts Council England from their emergency recovery fund