ANARCHA KEYS: SEARCHING FOR THE SOUNDS OF ANARCHA

The Keys. It was hearing the large rusted keys that hung from a large rusted ring. It was their thick jangling noise that first spoke to me. Made me think of one sound to explore in creating the soundscape for The Anarcha Project. Petra & Anita had brought the keys back from Old Alabama Town & I was immediately drawn to them. Obviously they were too. Why did they buy them? Looking at the keys was equally arresting. They seemed threatening somehow & made me think of authority, access and non-access. Was this a sound that Betsy, Lucy & Anarcha might have known, maybe feared. The jarring metallic sound also harkened back to photos that Petra & Anita also brought back of old gynecological instruments. Horrible gnarled & spiked things. 'Pewter-Spoon-Speculum.' My gut tells me that these sounds were familiar to our three women. What did they do & feel when they heard the heavy jangle of the keys/gyno instruments. Perhaps I could sometimes use the archaic & harsh jangling in a stark 'as is' manner, Other times it could slide into a rhythmic pulse, transmuting into a sound reminiscent of African ago-go bells & shakers. Maybe a coping mechanism of Anarcha & family, a sound that drowns out the harshness & replaces it with spirit, faith & devotion. The sound of disconnecting from pain, from the body. The sound of trance, of blacking out.

---- Tiye Giraud