A commission from Edinburgh
dance company Fight or Flight productions, "Leg Across My
Kin"* was a development from an earlier work I had done
with the company - for a piece performed at the Traverse
Theatre and The Arches, Glasgow called "Liquid Oxygen" in
1999/2000. In that piece we'd been working with some
bespoke circuitry and imaging of video material in
darkness. By the time I'd done Leg, it had gotten
easier to make films in the dark and that we did. Although
I could see our two dancers Yael and Rodolfo - they
couldn't see me and danced in complete darkness. This close
had been closed off from the public for some years and
although there was access by tour companies, it still felt
rough, untampered with and genuinely scary. Even to a
rationalist like myself.
"THE DARK, claustrophobic streets running off the Royal
Mile lead away from the light and downhill into the
shadows. These half-forgotten reminders of Edinburgh’s
insanitary past provide a perfect setting for a suitably
spooky atmosphere. Largely built upon the ruins of
centuries gone by, it is not just those of a sensitive
nature who feel a certain frisson when they walk past"
(scotsman.com)
I like to think I was there before Yvette Fielding was running around
Edinburgh's underworld with a dodgy Liverpudlian psychic
in tow in a decidedly unscientific appraisal of places
where tourists willingly part large sums of cash to
visit. Excuse my tone, it's just I was there back in the
day before night vision settings on domestic camcorders
had just become de rigueur - to me, this infra
red night vision was the equivalent of seeing with X-ray
eyes but it wasn't going to see the dead, we'd have to
do that ourselves through the piece! But these x-ray
eyes did work. I was blind, now I could see.
Maybe we'd catch some "orbs" on film? Of course we did!
despite what Most Haunted will tell you, "orbs"
are dust particles and flies and minute moths. They will
be most noticable 2-3 feet from the camera where they
will be thrown out of focus by the camcorders.
The Real Mary King’s Close consists of a number of
closes which were originally narrow streets with houses on
either side, stretching up to seven storeys high. In 1753,
the Burgh Council decided to develop a new building on this
site, the Royal Exchange (now the City Chambers). The
houses at the top of the closes were knocked down and part
of the lower sections were kept and used as the foundations
for the Royal Exchange. The remnants of the closes were
left beneath the building, dark and ancient dwellings
steeped in mystery. (Mary King's Close website).
We worked in that close for two weeks on our own most of
the time. Fight or Flight and myself immersed ourselves in
the lore and geography of these catacombs for two whole
weeks improvising stories, choreography and flickering
imagery complete with dead animals we bought from butchers
in large bags. One room in particular proved to be
particularly affecting, laden as it was with hooks from the
roof, which I hung dancers from and inverted the picture
180 degrees so it looked as if they are floating from it.
In the end our piece was screened around dance festivals
all over the world (last I heard it was enjoying a response
in Ontario).
The celebrity of the close's supernatural resident is
Annie, a ghostly pre-teen who (so the story goes) scared
the daylights out of a Japanese psychic in 1992. This lady
had been unimpressed by the tour until she arrived at one
of the many small rooms. There she was suddenly struck by
an overwhelming feeling of sickness, hunger and cold and,
when she tried to leave felt the ghastly tug of a ghostly
hand on her leg. Poor Annie's spectral life has now been
fleshed out and it is believed that she had been left to
die by her family. Since then, people from round the world
have come to "Annie’s room". Many have told tour guides of
seeing impressions of the spirit in the room; some
visitors, treating the room as a shrine, have left gifts
for the little girl out of affection. (scotsman.com)
I never saw her.
