GILDA LYONS

While Bone Needles is a collection of abstract vocal sounds rather than words, it is, nevertheless, a direct communication between two voices.  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.

Commissioned by Amy Pivar Dances, Bone Needles was premiered on 21, 22, 23 April 2006 by Elaine Valby and the composer, with movement choreographed and performed by Amy Pivar, at Dance New Amsterdam in New York City.