THE BIRTH CAUL is a bell-flower membrane blossomed from the amnion that masks the
newborn head. Its presence is occasional Its purpose is obscure, a vestment signalling
involvement in some silent and unfathomable elite; some sect of Trappist embryos
that dream the Absolute beneath these wan, translucent hoods.
THE BIRTH CAUL is an evocation, both in a poetic and a ritual sense, of our first
landscape and the forces that inform it. Alloying spoken human text with landscaped
sound and ritual enactments, it attempts a vortex; winds an inspiral dream from the
site and date of its unique perforrnance back towatds the drowned, pellucid territory of
our origins.
THE BIRTH CAUL gradually unfolded, is a fragile tatter. a lost map to be restored
with these faint tracings, lines as thin and tentative as veins. The naking membrane
charts a monstrous and forgotten continent, each vivid splash of motherblood an archipelago. It is a crumpled and mismanaged postcard from a vanished state, its message in
an antique hand not readily deciphered
THE BIRTH CAUL documents a personal Atlantis, a pre-verbal dreamtime, a naive shamanic
state rich with abandoned totems; unremembered dance and fire; the florid signatures
of mediaeval demons half-apparent through the strange-attractor loops of scribbled
chalk upon a playground wall. A dark without a doll.
Alan Moore
THE BIRTH CAUL to be staged at a Victorian magistrate's court in Newcastle city centre
on November 18, 1995, is the first and sole performance of a new work by writer Alan
Moore, reading to music written especially for the event by David J (BAUHAUS and
LOVE & ROCKETS) with composer and performer Rm Perkins. Whilst specific to its site and
date, the work aspires to sound a deeper and more urgent fathom of the human moment,
from conception to cancer ward.
This event is being recorded for a limited edition CD and will be issued by Charrrn
Records on December 5th. Details of the CD and order forrns from Charrrn Records,
IS Devonshire Place, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 2NB. Telephone: (o l 9 l ) 281 1465.
Organised by:
Jon Bewley and Simon Herbert
Locus +
17, 3rd Fl Wards Building
31-39 High Bridge
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
NEI lEW
England
t + 44 (0)
