Aunt Norma and Uncle Bill
2002
A memoir of my aunt and uncle, Norma and Bill Macdonald. It is a listening to the repetitions within familial relations. It is the recognition of the approaching passing of my own parents. It is circle within a circle within a circle of extended family which, in this instance, is mine and also belongs to everyone. It is for everyone’s aunt and uncle.
"Aunt Norma and Uncle Bill… moves on levels that transcend straightforward dance. Performer and choreographer Helen Walkley sets this deeply personal piece to a conversation with elderly- verging- on- ancient aunt and uncle, blending it with composer James Beckwith Maxwell’s ethereal strings. The first thing that hits you is the way the discussion goes in sometimes illogical circles. For anyone who has ever conversed with an aging relative, the pang of recognition will be there: the way older people’s memories sometimes become a jumble, the way clarity can give way to confusion and repetition. The aunt is chatty, quick to laugh, and maybe a little out of it; the uncle is too weary with age to respond unless prodded loudly, because his hearing is going. The pieces brilliance is in the fact that Walkley chooses not to dance a direct reflection of this looping dialogue. Instead, she finds a loose and fluid vocabulary that seems to represent the inescapable march of time: Walkley moves back and forth across the stage, at first crouching and kneeling from corner to corner, and then, later in the piece, running frantically until she hits invisible walls. At times she seems overcome with grief or panic- perhaps in the face of the looming death of loved ones? The effect is strange and slow to take hold, but when it does, it’s almost overwhelming."
Gail Jonhson, The Georgia Straight
choreographer, performer Helen Walkley
The conversation between myself and Aunt Norma and Uncle Bill was recorded in the summer of 1998. James B. Maxwell edited and composed the score in 2001.
