desire hums into silver ~ a rehearsal for a prayer ~ by Maria Miguel Pratas
Maria Miguel Pratas's "desire hums into silver ~ a rehearsal for a prayer" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on August 8, 2025 as one of 24 acts, (curated by Elisa Giuliani) at the occasion of the AEROPONIC ACTS 2025: CHOREIA (convened by Gabriëlle Schleijpen).
Here you will find an introduction by the presenter, video-documentation filmed by Baha Görkem Yalım and a written report by Grant Watson.The report includes a summary of the spoken, improvised comments by esteemed guest respondents Barby Asante, Sandi Hilal, and Zairong Xiang.
desire hums into silver ~ a rehearsal for a prayer
Maria's question: Bucolic mannerisms or the aftermath of affection?
Maria's intro:
An affirmation of hesitance; a reluctance. An attempt to find language with which the wound is dressed and addressed with; a belief in the bare movement of what swells into trembling. An exploration of an embodied landscape inciting memory. A gathering and intertwining of muddy resonances inside and outside of m(y)our body; a vibratory process of affection. It rises in the midst of an in-between-ness and a beside-ness: in the capacities to act and be acted upon. Absence as a locus—a being beyond being & a reflection-reflecting. Utterances from before there were voices, gestures older than grief, silence between the words where tissues speak. Of the world’s obstinacies and rhythms, its negations as much as its invitations—a space for rearticulation, supporting the matter that inherently confuses the structures that hold us in place. An amalgamation: an interdependence to share and multiply the pathways to hope.
Grant's report:
The work takes place in the large light room with windows. As people enter they receive a spray of perfume on their wrists. There is a pattern on the floor made from salt with a few objects in front of it, including a candle, some matches, a couple of tarot cards, and a lace shawl suspended on threads. Three women occupy the space. One stands at a microphone while the other two lounge and lean out of windows. The speaker at the microphone starts to read a text. A narrative about connection and disconnection, which sound as if it is addressed to a lover. It begins with a series of words like rupture, rift, split, tear. The speaker says: the scent of your skin, top notes, salt tears, ashes, leather, moss, tea. The speaker describes how she and her lover exchanged perfumes, how she carries the scent of her lover who is missing, how she is longing for their skin to meet again. The tone is melancholy, solemn, entreating. The two figures who have been standing at the window now perform a choreography on the floor moving in tandem while trying to maintain contact, and the speaker says: your hand against my hand, to hold, that is what hands are for. The figures come to standing and walk through the pattern of salt disrupting it. A third figure joins in the choreography, as they come closer we see that they have silver painted on their bodies, including their lips, hands, and knees. The speaker refers to a guardian angel. Then to the sound of an electric organ the speaker joins the other performers, while the voice continues as a recording. Four performers, arranged in couples, continue to interact using erotic gestures. We hear the words: This is how you say goodbye? This is how we say goodbye? This is how I say goodbye? While the figures separate and roll around on the ground, further disrupting the pattern in the salt.
Barby Asante thinks the term bucolic means a lot in relation to the form the artist has presented. That the staging was beautiful. For a performance using the spoken word she is struck by the exploration of grief, the loss of a lover, a breakup, things that are difficult to describe. It felt to her as if the words were spoken from the past, and she liked the pacing of the piece, which made her think about time. She wonders about the blurring of the lover and the religious in the mention of a guardian angel, about this culturally, the idea of the ultimate love being some sort of religious experience. There were times when the language was choking, and she felt this was echoed in the movements such as the push and pull between performers. She is curious to know how the collaboration between the performers and the artist worked. Barby adds that there is something different in translation, how love and loss are articulated, she thinks about this often with her foreign students, and discusses how they can play with it.
Zairong Xiang thinks it a beautiful piece. He brings up the word ‘saudade’ mentioned in the text, which is hard to translate from Portuguese, but was there in the work as a process of letting something go, reflected in the tension of hugging and pushing away. The carpet made of salt recalls Pessoa’s famous line about salt. He says that the ritualistic aspect was very lightly introduced, and that he noticed the candles and the tarot cards, which point to a feminine space. Zairong reflects on how in an artwork you can afford to use other languages, how Portuguese is richer in its materiality.
Sandi Hilal likes the fact that as they entered the audience is sprayed with perfume. What it takes for the audience to smell similarly, yet differently. She refers to the spiritual aspect, which is crucial to the work, but feels there was too much light in the space for this to come across effectively. She would have loved to have smelled the room and to have felt more included. She is curious to know if the dancers were given instructions, or if they improvised in a way that also might ruin the piece. She notes that not being an English native speaker the content of the text was hard to follow.
