An audiovisual, multi-screen work (14-minute loop) featuring a live sound performance by Boff Whalley (Yorkshire musician with Chumbawamba, playwright, founder of Commoners Choir) and the Commoners Choir in collaboration with David Toop (London-based experimental performer and writer) and a unique, homemade 15-meter string instrument called the Ring David. Filmed in Salts Mill (Shipley, UK). This work echoes the work of Stephen Cripps (1952–1982).
Based on research by artist Simone Bennett into the work of Stephen Cripps, a late British pyrotechnic multimedia performance artist and firefighter. Cripps was a key figure in London’s avant-garde, known for experimental performances with “performing machines,” built instruments, and pyrotechnics. Fascinated by parallels with her own practice, particularly the symbolic and transformative qualities of fire, Bennett developed this project building on Cripps’ legacy.
Whalley and Bennett guided the Commoners Choir in practices of active listening and beyond traditional singing. Toop, who knew Cripps, contributed his expertise with improvisation and his knowledge on experimental instruments. Toop’s book Sinister Resonance, exploring sound as a haunting, destabilizing force, inspired this work greatly.
Bennett in collaboration with instrument maker Yuri Landman, designed the Ring David, a custom 15-meter string instrument. The new work integrates the choir with improvisations by David Toop on the Ring David. Inspired by Cripps’ use of explosives and homemade instruments, which made audiences active participants and ensured performances existed only in the moment. This project embraces spontaneity, with no rehearsals between Toop and the choir, blurring the line between being performers and audience.
An intimate performance, filmed in the 160-meter space of Bradford’s Salts Mill, captured the choir’s interaction with Toop’s improvisations. Shot by two directors of photography, with sound recorded from multiple perspectives.
Inviting audiences into a collective encounter where listening and sound connect us as both active and reflective processes experiences the tension between composition and improvisation, performing and listening.
Produced by Pavillion artist William Rose UK and Jaap Hermans NL. This work has been made possible by the Mondriaan Fonds, Stichting Strand Links, and the Dutch Embassy in the UK.
Director of Photography Lonneke Worm & Eva Heinsbroek
Sound Recording and Mixing Jaap Sijben
Instrument Yuri Landman & Sacha de Haas
Post-Production & Edit – Tim Roza
Grading – Barend Onneweer
Production Assistants Marla Rose, Jimy Silva de Almeida