Liza Lim: Photograph: Astrid Ackermann
Weaver of worlds Interview : Abi Bliss
The Australian composer unravels the knotty magic of her two new hcmf// premieres From the violence of desire in her sensuous and visceral 2008 opera The Navigator, to the symbolic power of languages celebrated in 2005's Mother Tongue, and the veiled glimpses beyond this world in her several works exploring the Aboriginal concept of 'shimmer', Liza Lim's music provides rich food for the imagination. Currently the director of the University of Huddersfield's Centre for Research in New Music, the Australianborn composer has three works featured at this year's Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. On Sunday 23 November, Cikada Ensemble present two pieces, including the UK premiere of Winding Bodies: 3 Knots. And the Arditti Quartet @ 40 concert on Saturday 29 November includes another premiere to become entangled in, with the first British performance of The Weaver's Knot.
Images of the erotic desire of the lover for the beloved, of being drunk in the tavern and being bewildered or lost in ecstasy are at the same time expressions of an experience of divine and spiritual transcendence hcmf//: The two new works of yours featured at hcmf// 2014 both explore the imagery, symbolism and structure of knots. What fascinates you about these? Liza Lim: Knots are one of our oldest technologies for binding materials together and I was intrigued by the ways in which they've also been used to bind much more ephemeral things. One thinks of the knot tied in the handkerchief to help you remember something - an example of really early off-board memory storage! - and there are examples from cultures all over the world of knots used in spells to enchant a lover or to curse an enemy. hcmf//: What common threads are there between the two pieces? LL: In Winding Bodies: 3 Knots, written for the Norwegian ensemble, Cikada, the three knots of the title comes from a
Nordic tale of sailors buying the wind from witches or sorcerers. The wind was sold as a rope tied in three knots: untying the first knot would result in a breeze, the second would give a strong wind and the third, which should never be untied, contained a hurricane. So the knotting provides the ritual action used to contain and concentrate an intention or desire to control the elements. Both Winding Bodies and The Weaver's Knot explore different ways of ritualising repetitive and looping actions as well as effects of friction on tensile materials - hair, string, a column of air. At the end of Winding Bodies the musicians are asked to play some fragments recalled from what they have previously played; in a way, the 'material' of that part of the piece is the 'memory work' of the players. The musical composition expands via an experience filtered through the musicians' bodies that is offered to the audience. Though you might say that that is what all performance is anyway!