The joy of listening. Drawing Luke Hockley.
Before I performed this show (Listening by Hand) I wondered if listening for 4 hours was going to be exhausting.
I don’t know where I got this impression from. It sounds like it might be exhausting.
It wasn’t.
Not at all.
It was a relief.
The structure for my listening performance is very clear and simple. Which makes it possible for me to settle into this role. What this structure does is create a set of circumstances that mean the person I’m listening to can take care of themselves. I’d love to say that I knew this was how it was going to work, that that is why I created this particular structure, but it was a bit of an evolution, tweaking and shifting the thing as I learnt about it.
However it happened it turns out that this structure creates a sense of calmness and safety for me as the listener. I come out of the experience having listened to someone make sense of their own world. I come out having had the opportunity to experience the world from a perspective that I could never live, I come out changed by the things I have heard. After the experience I feel like I can breathe.
It seems like the person speaking has a special experience as well…but you would have to ask them about that.
I’m so pleased that this work is a joy to perform.
So pleased to experience the joy of listening.
Love
Luke
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Day 1,013