The following text was co-commissioned as a part of our Live Art Writers Network (LAWN) at Fierce Festival in October 2024. This programme worked with three Birmingham-based writers: Harmanpreet Randhawa, Rupinder Kaur, and Leah Hickey to generate creative critical responses to the festival context. LAWN is a network aimed at cultivating experimental writing practices happening in dialogue with performance and live art, find out more about LAWN here.

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Listen to the text:

Without love, there’s no reason to live.
Without you, what would I do with the love I give?

– Thinking of You by Sister Sledge, from the album We Are Family, released 1979.

I arrive with baited breath, and sit alone beneath clear, dark skies. Caressed by the cold of October, I wring my hands and check the time. I wait. Slowly emerging, eyes dart to the open doors before me. A familiar face and soft hand leads the way, as I retreat into a different kind of darkness.

I sink alone into velvet, ruby-stemmed fingertips pulling tightly at my sleeves. Kisses and whispers and fragile smiles, and then, it begins.

Enter, stage left: A spectral ballerina bathed in ivory, plagued by diamantés. Pointe shoes atop their feet – pearly-white and glossed – resemble a kind of coffin. Small, silver plaques, engraved, glimmer in the light. They dance in the dark.

In the pits of it, trembling and teary, I see before me perfect piles of what appear to be

belongings, of a loved one once upon this Earth. These piles – pearls, trinkets, tchotchkes

– begin to slowly glow, one by one, as if illuminated by magik. The lightest touch of a minor key.

A message from God, a long lost memory, a light to lead the way.

I think of those piles once on my Father’s bed, on the floor, in the hallway, in my arms. Lost oddities: glass, plastic, cotton, paper, old and new and in-between. Useless, beautiful.

In silence – somber and mild – the ballerina delicately sets forth. Towering stilts abound, a dance ensues akin to tightrope walking. As each soft, lilac light leads the way, they tentatively follow. A ghost is here, divine. Body propped by crutches, I wince. Their face is pained and I understand them.

Scene: Light projects death, and all are horrified. A gentle creature, coat speckled chestnut, hangs beheaded, blood-letted, as tears stream down my cheeks. I cannot watch, nor can I look away.

The whirring mechanics of the abattoir ensue, frame by frame by frame, relentlessly so. Five figures exit the theatre.

I cannot watch. Sat still, tense, trembling and frozen, I cannot look away.

The ballerina ventures further into the factory floor, wading through uniformed workers. The ground is wet, cold. Soft palm to carcass, a gentle ear presses against fur-sodden flesh: measured, steady, waiting. I wonder what they pine for. Heart-aching, bile rises and I close my eyes.

Scene: Candles, white, are set alight amidst the rolling, nocturnal fog. Candelabras of black wrought iron paint a picture of purgatory: expansive, listless. I must weep again.

Butterly (defiant):
There is no law which tells me how to grieve.

The thick, gothic fog forms a plume, pearlescent and aching, beneath soft stage light. Before them, a box, glossed ochre, sits amidst a shrine. Atop, a plaque of gold, inscribed with the name of a lover, a friend, a soul destined for the beyond. Birth year, death year, all together.

With delicate nails, the urn is pried open. Blackened ashes fall away like fine sand, as the butterfly before me gathers a heaped spoonful. Slow and measured, they bring it to their lips. Closing their eyes, they consume. I cry.

Butterly (mournful):
I am his body. I am his grave.

The heavy, winter fog emboldens, pouring, pooling, rising into centre stage. A fixture of horror. Turning from me, wax candle flames flickering, they retreat into nothing for good.

When we die, where do we go, and who will greet us at the gates? What becomes of our loves, fears and aspirations? Are we stardust, or soil?

Scene: I stand alone betwixt the wind, wishing for a body to hold me.

Angel (pitiful):
Oh, babe! Are you alright?

^{put your heart under your feet…and walk!, Steven Cohen, image by Manuel Vason}

Performances cited:
put your heart under your feet…and walk!, Steven Cohen

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Leah Hickey (b. 1996, Walsall, UK) is an artist led by heartache. Hickey uses English Romantic poetry and auto-fiction as a starting point for rhythmic verse, typographic painting and gravestones. The artist’s work is influenced by classical American cinematography, performative femininity, and Christian and Druidic ritual surrounding death. Hickey currently produces ‘Emotional Outbursts’, a ‘part-fact, part-fiction otherworld of love letters’ that merges free verse poetry and Early Modern English language with contextual research, which has manifested in print form. Hickey also co-directs Prayer Room, an artist-led gallery in Birmingham, UK, and recently founded Tentative Press. leahhickey.com

LAWN is commissioned by performingborders, FIERCE Festival, Take Me Somewhere, CITEMOR, and METAL Culture, and it is supported with funds by Arts Council England and Necessity Fund.