The performance A Lesson in Love is formed by a set of instructions for a game revolving around compiling a list of at least 100 song titles and then learning the list ‘by heart’, until the artists reach the point at which they can ‘say the list out loud without hesitations or stumbles’.
The song titles are all from songs that contain the words (or are in some way related to) love and loneliness. The task itself has an impossibility embedded in its demands – it is endless and unforgiving.
Hannah and Rachel stand in front of an audience with an unfamiliar list. Through their public learning of this ‘script’ they are trying and failing, testing themselves and getting it wrong. The task insists upon this language of song titles being heard, being memorised, being repeated, being said out loud.
This creates a space in which new layers of meaning can be found within the found language of love songs. Through the process of collecting, re-ordering, memorising and performing these words.
photos: Cara Davies & John Sandford
(performance) Dartington College of Art, September 2009
(performance) Exposure Gallery, Swansea Fringe Festival, October 2005
(performance) Scratching/multi avond, TENT, Rotterdam, March 2004
(performance) Three Minute Warning, Exeter Phoenix, November 2003