Commune (wp)
Inspired by Peter Wohlleben’s Book ‘The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries From a Secret World’ (2015). The performers in ‘Commune’ are limited to communicating in a way which is reflective of how trees communicate. In the book Wohllenben describes how trees use a sub surface layer of fungi to pass information to each other. In Commune you can see the relationship between performers who are vessels of information and those who take in and give out new information. It isn’t too dissimilar to how we have evolved to communicate through the internet and other networks. In an era where our natural world and environment is being aggressively threatened, I feel it is important to highlight the similarities between us as humans and our surroundings.
Commissioned by Kate Halsall with funding from PRS for Music (The Open Fund for Music Creators 2016) and Arts Council England (2018)