What if a landscape were a dance?
What would a painting of hills and sheep look like if they were heavy metal, or the final scene from Woolf Works, or an Argentine tango? Or rap, house, or a big band Chattanooga? How many roads must a man go down?
I was thinking about my first idea, magical realism, and framing this in Strictly terms as any music, any costume, any story, as long as it’s a waltz. Now I’m wondering if I can interpret chosen images as dances or the music that commonly underpins them.
I’m also wondering if what I have here is my own spin on the magical part of the realism and how this would look. I can certainly see film playing a part, and original audio of some sort. But the primary source, the painting, what would that look like as a standalone piece? Cow Shed as Cha Cha; Man at Bus Stop evoking a rumba?
There would be no direct reference; no actual dancing or obvious visual clues. But musical forms have ebbs and flows, sharpnesses, staccatos, fractures, drifts and deep echoing booms. Can I bring that out with colour, form, brush strokes? Perhaps looking at sound waves on a music making app would give me a clue.
