The Sound of Time
Review of TINKUY, SEVEN ACTS FOR THE BEGINNING, END, AND BEGINNING OF TIME
By Irene Lyla Lee
TINKUY, SEVEN ACTS FOR THE BEGINNING, END, AND BEGINNING OF TIME is a performance and exhibit, at Soon Is Now until July 6th, located at The River Center at Long Dock Park in Beacon. A workshop on creating sound objects takes place on June 28th.
Koyoltzintli’s artwork is an aesthetic language informed by the pre-Columbian indigenous traces from Ecuador, the place of her upbringing. Though thoroughly studied, from the Andes to the Amazon, the Ecuadorian coast is largely ignored. Due to this lack of research, objects from long ago remain there. Much of the mountains and forests are threadbare, yet the shores remember a culture whose nearly forgotten stories were colonized. Koyoltzintli delves into the mostly clay objects utilized by the local Chorrera culture (1300–300 BCE). “Rocks hold the ancient memory of the earth,” Koyoltzintli observes.
Tinkuy is Quechua/Kichwa, meaning “two meetings to produce a third.” After one of her elders passed away, Koyoltzintli visited the “Americas” section of a nearly empty Metropolitan Museum during the pandemic. There she found silence and objects frozen behind glass. Koyoltzintli has made over 100 pieces, some exact replicas of pre-Columbian flutes and some her interpretations based on the geometry of ancient designs specific to what is now Ecuador.
Rocks hold Tinkuy like a vessel. The performance plays on a loop in the exhibit and broadly illustrates seven ages: The Time of Ether, The Time of Fire, The Time of Water, The Time of Wind/Birds, The Time of Voices, and The Time of the Anthropocene. The sonic performance is assisted by recorded birds, glaciers, and the sound objects exhibited. Performers include Koyoltzintli, Bel Falleiros, Cristina Mejía, Daniel Blake, Ricardo Gallo, dance performed by Mar Parrilla, and Mohawk singer Theresa Bear Fox.
The Chorrera culture was one of the most sonically sophisticated societies of the ancient world. Many of the objects come from a deep legacy of ritual, healing, and connection. Western science even coincides with the geometry of the objects, like a universal language. Some sound objects use water; some are bowls, flutes, or whistles. Many are shaped like birds or humans. Some have feet. Flecked with mica, a finely layered rock where early bacteria developed, they have a cosmic appearance. One is a dodecahedron, which scientists consider the possible shape of our universe. These sound objects are rounded bodies for wind and water that create a negative, making space for the person or element engaging it.
At the north end of the exhibit is a beaded, door-like shape of an intuitive vision brought to the artist after collaborating with another musician. A visual manifestation of the third created by an encounter. A democratic value is placed on every measure of time, whether ancient or immediate.
These objects were never made to produce beauty. Sometimes the breath breaks the note, or water pushes air through their tubes to release a lonely call. In The Time of Wind/Birds, the performers use small flutes, feathers, and a boa-like sound object that is Koyoltzintli’s design, inspired by an ancient flute. Koyoltzintli describes how quickly some animals took flight in a world of winds after they emerged from the water. There can be a difficulty in the uncertainty of rhythm or tone, like wind under unsteady wings, a discord that brings awareness.
Koyoltzintli says she’s used to sound objects on the floor of her studio, but the wooden displays, which are no more than a foot off the ground, produce the intimacy of a bow, a humble acknowledgment of earth. Aware of negative space throughout the exhibit, Koyoltzintli traces the glyph of a mountain made by the displays, which faces the Hudson River, visible beyond a field, the same direction as the Ecuadorian coast: a continent consolidated into one orientation. Koyoltzintli says the West is a point to reflect and face discomfort. The show implicates us, inviting us to consider our role in environmental disruption, as the performance ends with everyone–performers, and audience–cracking rocks together. These rocks are now suspended against the wall: a visible tension. Sound marks time, and these objects–so specific to the time and place when they were created–also fold time when they are played. Though the performance is over, the echo remains. We continue the music in our lives.
Humans are a small piece of this cacophony. Pieces of black and white Japanese paper lining the exhibit tables honor the mockingbird who serenaded the performers during practice. Looking for new sounds to try, with hope, the mockingbird will practice the music too, replicating the surrounding world.
