This is the fifth video of I AM NOT ON TOUR, an ongoing group project (or rather, a conversation between myself and the other members of my band) responding to not being able to perform on stage, and not being able to be together. It is not an art project as much as a project about what the lack of a communal, physical art space brings forth (and taketh away).
In these clips we attempt to use elements of the show we are not performing right now (The Practice of Love), and make some kind of video based thinking material.
In our cancelled show, I used to dance to a song called High Alice while a video was shown behind me. In this video, however, everyone in the April North American tour band is dancing to the same video, like a multitrack song arrangement. It is a quarantine dream journey, travelling through the world with the help of lo-fi technology. Apart, but together in attempted synchronicity.
We call her High Alice-19.
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LYRICS:
Alice lost, she took a long rest in an unknown place,
she thought, where do all these creatures come from,
and why are they here,
like in a club of fur,
strange feeling.
They must be drawn to something…
They must be missing something
She reaches back through centuries of arms…
We kind of touch through centuries of arms
While hare and fox and doe and deer
are all trying to find her.
Let her sketch out her quarantine
(her pleasure dome).
They must be drawn to something,
she must be giving them something,
which makes the waiting better,
and I want something better,
we all want something better,
we are something better.
The beautiful sink,
the beautiful soap,
the faucet, the drainpipe, the ocean
where I wrote my first poem
with the foam on my skin
then rinsing off between my thighs.
Once I was out with people,
I wish I’d given them something,
something that would be better,
and I want something better,
we all want something better,
we’re waiting for something better,
we are high
Alice,
we’re writing for something better,
Alice-19
Alice-19
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Video editing and background video: Jenny Berger Myhre
Starring: Natali Abrahamsen Garner, Vivian Wang, Håvard Volden, Jenny Berger Myhre and me
Music («High Alice-19») played by: Natali Abrahamsen Garner (voices), Vivian Wang (synths), Håvard Volden (percussion) and me (voice, synths, beats)
Song by me (the original track «»High Alice» can be heard on my album The Practice of Love, released by Sacred Bones Records & Su Tissue in 2019)