Trying to Use Words (2025)
for singing harpist and dancer
Trying to Use Words is a work for singing harpist and dancer that explores relationships between voice, instrument, movement, and sound. The piece draws on T. S. Eliot’s East Coker, addressing the difficulty of communication and the ways in which meaning emerges through repetition, dependency, and partial failure.
The work treats expression as a relational process rather than an individual act. Musical and physical gestures are interdependent, with each performer responding to and shaping the actions of the other. Meaning is presented as provisional and contingent, formed through interaction rather than resolution.
Written in 2025, Trying to Use Words is dedicated to Jenna Vergeynst and originated as an offshoot of the project Liaisons. This recording presents the work without the dancer.
Performance / Recording
Performed by Jenna Vergeynst (harp and voice).
Recorded on 5 May 2025 in Walpurgis, Belgium.
Costume by Nelly Bellegarde and Pacal Konradi.
Video by Jelle Bokelmann.
Sound by Tim Courtyn.
Lighting by Winter Derycker.
More information about Jenna Vergeynst