“We’re challenging the audience to be involved in the performance”: Lucy Railton, Rebecca Salvadori and Charlie Hope on their new collaborative live show

In their dynamic new project Not A Word From Me, the trio reimagines Railton’s 2023 album as a live exploration of sound, light, and the interplay between performer and audience.

Not A Word From Me takes its title from a track on cellist and electronic composer Lucy Railton’s 2023 album, Corner Dancer. The live show, created by Railton in collaboration with video artist Rebecca Salvadori and light designer Charlie Hope, expands on the album’s material, incorporating elements unique to each artist’s discipline to form a dynamic environment. The title alludes to the piece’s primary site of interest: communication – how much we choose to disclose or hold back, and the different forms those exchanges can take. Instead of deferring to lofty concepts, Not A Word From Me takes sensorial experience as its springboard. It explores material and narrative tensions, oscillating between extremes to challenge the audience’s own sense of involvement and agency.

Having premiered at Berlin’s CTM festival earlier this year, its second performance will take place at Braga’s Semibreve, both festivals having commissioned the work alongside deSingel, Fiber Festival and the ICA. A continuation rather than a repetition, the second iteration will be shaped by the same principles of responsiveness and spatial sensitivity that underpin the piece itself. No two performances are identical, evolving together with the relationship between the collaborators. We caught up with them to hear more about how the piece came together, what it means to work across disciplines, and why uncertainty is central to their process.

How did this collaboration come about?

Lucy Railton: The commission was very open-ended, so I was able to just be like ‘OK, what do I want to make and who do I want to make it with?’ Charlie and Rebecca are my long-time friends and already have a long history of working together. In fact, Rebecca and I met through a commission by Mark Fell in the Czech Republic and became friends for the very fact that we understood each other’s work in a profound way. I don’t want to get too astrological, but Rebecca and I share the exact same date of birth, only one year apart (Rebecca is a triple Capricorn!) I don’t know how relevant it is, but it feels like it is.

Charlie Hope: Sorry, I don’t know anything about horoscopes! Lucy and I have known each other since we were both putting on experimental, multidisciplinary nights in London and Rebecca and I have worked on many projects together. That’s very formative. I’m sure there will be crossovers that we aren’t even aware of in terms of influences and ethics. 

How is working with friends different to working with people you didn’t already know?

Rebecca Salvadori: Well, the complexity is in the fact that we are always changing. It’s very important to keep that in mind when you collaborate with close friends; nothing is for granted, and the work is an opportunity to redefine how you relate to each other. What I find fascinating is the spectrum of relationships: if you’ve known each other for a long time, it can almost be even more complex because you have to give space to finding each other again. There’s a difference between friendship and artistic collaboration. Knowing each other for many years actually gives it many more layers.

What themes does the piece explore?

LR: I rarely make music according to a specific concept, theme or narrative. Corner Dancer, the album which Not A Word From Me featured on, explores tensions in sound and space, but I’m still coming to it from a really sensorial standpoint. I’m really interested in the material of sound and the emotional content of that material, how we experience the world as fluctuating temperatures and dynamics. I think we have a shared interest in building spaces together. This live show tries to bring the audience into that. 

The expression ‘not a word from me’ sort of implies you’re withholding information. I think all three of us share a certain sensitivity around that – the idea of being personal without revealing all our secrets, being strong and soft at the same time. The original track features very intense strings, but there’s also whispering vocals that come in and out, making it really dynamic. So, the show explores that narrative through the interaction between sound and light, and physical structure and musical structure. Exploring extremes is what’s always excited me – you know, silence obliterated by noise. That’s when I feel most creative. I’m as excited by the sound of machinery as I am by music.

CH: I had no idea what form it was going to take, which I think is the meta component of the work itself. Some works feel like they have a particular world. This one feels like we’re exploring the orbits around the world. We had to be very in the moment, using our own senses to be curious, and approaching it with an openness or porosity. 

RS: We have a shifting structure of priorities which allows each element to give way to another at different points. There are moments of silence and absence of projections, the audience is really taken into account. On one hand, the film bounces off reflected light, but it also constructs the narrative of the show itself. I, myself, reflect on the construction of the show, but also on the relationships within that construction. There are lots of internal references and only some can be understood by the audience. It comes back to that balance between intimacy and distance.

LR: We’re really challenging the audience to be involved in the performance, not necessarily by bringing them in, but by asking them to tune their perception, instead of just providing the experience for them.

It’s meta indeed! Can you tell us more about the process itself?

RS: Charlie and I have worked together on many projects, each one with a slightly different approach or priority. For example, sometimes the light is central and the other elements follow. Other times it’s the film that leads. This one obviously started with the pre-existing music, with which we then had to balance with the other parts. It’s interesting because when you work on multiple collaborations, they’re all in dialogue in some way. This one was more about the three of us reconnecting on our individual practices, rather than one specific form dominating the other. It meant learning to really listen and not overpower each other, learning how to let each voice breathe.

CH: Yeah, we were obviously responding to the structure and energy of the sonic material that Lucy brought and had to navigate the presence of each element along the lines of what it was trying to communicate, how much we wanted each one to reveal or obscure. Parts of the piece are really intimate and delicate, and others are more harsh or abrupt. We had to learn to lean into those and start from a really open dialogue. For example, Rebecca and I almost switched roles slightly so that the lighting became a more abstracted form, with the video projections becoming a light source in themselves. From a lighting perspective, I had to work structurally and sculpturally. There are these physical structures with reflectors that bring a more membrane-like quality, whilst also creating the sense of time contained within the piece.

LR: That feels like a really key element to our collaboration, this constant shifting to try and make the triangle of elements work in harmony. For example, I do things with a microphone and an amplifier, a violin. Sometimes I’m behind the desk, but I move to different positions on the stage, so sometimes my whole body is exposed. That’s some very different energies that need different treatment from the light and film. We spent a lot of time looking at how shapes move in space, how light projects in space, how the film either foregrounds or backgrounds what’s happening. Even though there’s only eight minutes of film, there are also blocks of colour and black screens which, in themselves, have a big impact.

Can you talk more about the exchanges between your respective disciplines?

RS: Meeting Charlie has been very important for the way that I approach film and my understanding of how light impacts film. Film is so frontal because it affects how everything is seen. Light is much more bodily – like how your body exists in the light. The way I see my films now is much more sensorial, less one-dimensional. I find that kind of thing very nourishing – learning from each other and exchanging understanding.

How are you feeling ahead of your performance at Semibreve?

What’s crazy is you have these big shows, and you have one or two hours to set it up. Like, we spend ages conceptualising and refining our craft, and then we have to nail it in such a short time. It’s kind of mad when you think about it! That’s not a complaint, it’s just the weird way that the industry works. You have to learn to adapt within the limitations of each individual performance, but I think it’s going to be great.