Yesterday afternoon, my lovely Waleslab project collaborators, Sam Fox and Chris Dugrenier arrived from the midlands for a pre R&D week visit.

It was our first meeting together. The meeting of minds, interests, skills, ideas, perfect. Complementary. The weather: Not. Mountains shrouded, wind, driving rain. After a bit of lunch, we set out for the barn. Borrowed clothing and footwear. Probably not enough of it. We crept along the mountain slope, from the garden middens at Coed Gwydr, the source of the trysor, past the slug tree, undermined tree, the Bwthyn with the trysor in the walls, the fallen ash, the rocky outcrops, the attended saplings, the bracken circle, the sheep following, the streams.

The barn, cold, dark. Hesitant, shy, bordering on unwelcoming.

Chris and Sam responded in kind: Distance maintained. It didn't seem to draw them in. I was taken aback. But, leaving them while I collected a heater, I hadn’t done the introductions. We went on to explore it together. Connections started to form, but there was still a reserve. I admitted it took you like that, here, sometimes. I haven’t been able to speak out loud in the barn. To make a noise. Or to read, or write. It had been significant. It meant I'd spent all my time arranging and rearranging the 'treasure' (waste, rubbish). The past in the present. Maybe I'd gone too far? Had I over arranged?

Sam tried calling out, in a low voice. The cuckoo clock that I'd installed the night before was running fast. Bringing the future to what seemed mostly about the past, in the present. It ticked and called. 

Then home. Warming. Talking. Supper in the pub. We talked of our reactions, thoughts. We were meant to talk of why I had wanted to incorporate something of the Last Supper in the project. We don’t talk of it though. Up til 2, we talk of our practices, of where we’ve been and where we are going, explorations, forays into the unknown. Of the differences between an artist and a performer and a theatre maker, and how we are moving between them.

We do, in the end, discuss the Last Supper. At about 1am. Whether it fits, whether it is needed, is it adding anything. It’s a struggle. And quickly, we know –  we knew, already (and so I believe, did our dramaturg, Louise Osborn) - that it shouldn’t be the last supper but just be a supper. Or at last, the supper.  Instead, inspired by our chef, Gert, we'll have 7 courses, served on fragments. 7 toasts. A structure. Things are flowing.

Next morning, in the studio. Looking at where I’d got to before their visit. Playing with different interpretations – treasure, rubbish. Re-presencing the women who lived here, flowers for Ina, an inscription for Ellen. Moved to tears by sounds from Sam. Ll, rh, ng, m, o. Y Wyddor. All three of us, learning the sounds, following. Talking in three different languages. Welsh, English, French. Talking of ds>0, second law of thermodynamics with Chris., moved by sensing her body shifting, renewing, continually changing. We are on a roll, discussing, creating together, in the studio, in the barn. Let’s keep it like this: let’s not stop in the middle of our development week. Let’s decide on a series of improvisations for the sharing. Or focus on one part, in detail, and leave suggestions for the rest, like a life drawing, suggestions for the future.

So our discussions and thinking and movements become freer. Layering. Circling. Heater (working today) taking the edge off it. Growing in confidence in the space, starting to play. The trysor animated. Sam reading the englyn bedd Owen. The sound of welsh, spoken, in the barn. It longs for more. 

I catch a glimpse of Chris, then Sam in the dresser mirror… I double take. So used to my own reflection there. It takes me a moment to realise the symbolism - my collaborative project has started. And it has already dug down deeper than I could ever have done alone.

I am inspired, and relieved! Chris and Sam give me some lovely feedback: the project is weighty, full of potential, ideas, possibilities. So much to play with. 

But then they are gone. Until 19^th April. Yet more absence. We had talked of absence a lot, of presence suggesting absence, of absence suggesting presence. Of being desperately incomplete. Of fragments. Of being almost complete.

I am overwhelmed with the desire to piece together. I note down things we discussed. Email them to Chris and Sam. Let our dramaturg, Louise Osborn know of how well it went. More emails come in. I start worrying about risk assessments. There may be problems it seems.

Deflated, I return to the barn. See how it is doing.

The space has started to feel expectant. I want to clear away. To make room for it, for whatever is coming. But also, overwhelmingly, to make something bigger, to fill the void. Walking back and forward between the two rooms. Between the each room and the outside.  Pacing, noticing. I start to make noises. They get louder and fuller, and the space is filled. I'm finding my voice with noises Sam had started taught me…. ngngngngngngngngngmmmmmmmmmmmmmmoooooooooooooooo