Wool Waulking. Fulling

 I've been aware of Waulking Songs since graduate school but not able to think of how they might impact my work until recently- these rhythmic songs and dances could become strong elements to pull or build a performance around- not so much the songs or lyrics but the structure and visual quality of things lining up and being in unison- also the obvious connection of the material I have been using in my sculptures. 

Originally, fulling was carried out by pounding the woolen cloth with the fuller’s feet, or hands, or a club. In the Scottish Gaelic tradition this process was accompanied by Waulking Songs, Scottish folk songs which were sung to set the pace.

Typically, this was done with tweed fabric- due to the course nature of the wool after weaving with it. Fulling it partially felts the wool down to soften the fibers and shrink them down in a more matted structure (combination of weaving and felting) This is very much what I've been doing with my sculptures- hadn't been thinking about how the process could be more on display in the work- and performance gives me an interesting opportunity to explore how the felting can be apart of the work rather than a process used to create the end-result- I've also been thinking about the safety of doing this- Using traditional methods of Fulling- combining the sweat and agitation of the performer in the process of creating the sculptures or augmenting them as the performance carries on- I would take a considerable amount of performance to do what the machines do for me in my work- so I think it might be more of a poetic element in the work. The Waulking Songs also help to provide me with ways to compose the sounds I plan to have the performances set to. 

Currently, I'm thinking the performances will be done with 4 performers, each working through a set of "stretching/strengthening gestures" of their own choosing in the first half of the performance- I'll leave it to the performers to connect the sounds they are hearing to the gestural set of options pre-decided- over time the sound will direct the performers to be working in unison/rhythm with each other- much like Waulking, also the improvisational nature of the lyrics typical of Waulking leads me to want to lean in more for the performers to develop their own movement sets. - I'm thinking of it being similar to Limiting orders or structured freedom (Nottingham).