• Premiere: 21, 22, 23 April 2006 / Dance New Amsterdam, NYC / Amy Pivar Dances; OBject/obJECT / Gilda Lyons & Elaine Valby, voice

• Instrumentation: two voices

• Duration: 4'

A driven, wordless exchange between two voices, Bone Needles is a working song guided by the markings “summoning” “weaving” and “casting off.”

PROGRAM NOTE

A collection of abstract vocal sounds, Bone Needles is fueled by the possibilities for direct communication between two voices even without words.  Markings within the score (“summoning” “weaving” and “casting off”) guide an exchange that I imagined after watching a group of women in Nicaragua repairing nets on the beach with long needles made from fish bones.

After a thin, sharp object – which might very well have been one of their bone needles – pierced my foot on that same trip, the image of their sewing took on a richer meaning: as they continued to mend their nets, I was at work mending in a different way.  In Bone Needles, I explore the way in which two voices might mend together, working and weaving, driven by an inward focus that manifests itself in an outward musical expression.      -Gilda Lyons