Joshua Woolford (@jshwlfrd) About Index
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between energy and event, Collaboration w/ Sippin’ T/ Rukus Live! Somerset House, November 2024/ Live performance & Installation

Sound extends the reach of bodies and things through unseen yet deeply felt vibrations, “pressures and molecular agitations” (LaBelle, Sonic Agency). The title of this piece borrow’s from Brandon LaBelle’s explanation of the invisible, transformative power of sound as being “materially between energy and event”, extending this idea to include the concrete impact spiritual and ancestral connection has on our identity and understanding of the world(s) we inhabit.

Finding our asé, grounding ourselves within a space that craves uneven footing. A setting that has routinely thrown people like us into bureaucratic seas of uncertainty—seas with very real, tangible consequences. How do we craft a container of safety within places steeped in historical hostility? We call upon the elemental ancestors, known and unknown, those who carry luminance and benevolence. We offer them lavender, voice, and sweat, asking for their guidance, protection, and illumination as we navigate this witnessed search. 

The portals are opening. The container is ready. Together, we prepare to journey through the root, heart, throat, and crown—on our terms. Will you witness us in our vulnerability? Will you remain with us in the thick of this unfolding? Will you join in this collective grounding, a process that weaves care and play into its fabric?

More questions than answers spiral through our bodies. We release them through breath, through movement—gentle, abrupt, deliberate. Through looking, seeing, writing, shouting, whispering, and responding with technical, vibrational and material bodies. We are in this together, bound by a commitment to ourselves and to all who choose to co-create this new ritual. A shared unmaking of the perfect.

Are we returning to ourselves, or are we becoming something new?

Performed during Rukus Live! at Somerset House
Photography by Anne Tetzlaff
Videography by Tanka Tanka
Wearing pieces by Rachel Freire, UY Studio and Yaz XL