My Fatal Plurality
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Poet: Kim Patrick
Composer: Raymond Yiu
Tenor: Luís Gomes
Baritone: Clément Dionet
Lazaro String Quartet:
Violin I: Jonathan Chan
Violin II: Nigulia Mirzayeva
Viola: Jenny Lewisohn
Cello: Sergio Serra
Conductor: Raymond Yiu
Listen to My Fatal Plurality
Arthur Cravan born May 22, 1887, Lausanne, Switzerland) was known as a pugilist, a poet, a larger-than-life character, and an idol of the Dada and Surrealism movements. His real name was Fabian Avenarius Lloyd.
He was last seen at Salina Cruz, Mexico in 1918 and most likely drowned in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico in November 1918.
Cravan assumed many personas throughout his short life and was known for his frequent transformations and reinventions.
A mythical figure straddling the present and future, it has been said that his greatest creation was himself.
The little known of Cravan is ‘appealingly overblown’ and as much a construction made up of false memories, grand fantasy and the surrealist context of those who knew him, as it is that of his own design.
Fabian - struggles to capture and represent a ‘true’ version of Arthur Cravan and descends into the myth and performance himself.
Arthur - a choreographer of multiple identities and fictions. His final transformation – an unexplained death and possible resurrection.
Song Text
As a poet I am drawn to the palpable conviction in each self creation of Arthur Cravan. However fractured, in each version – even versions within versions – Cravan boldly championed an unrestrained creative flair. And yet – there is an indulgence, an underlying darkness beneath the ostentation that I wanted to amplify.
The title of this piece is extracted from Craven’s poem ‘Hie!’ (1913). It is worthwhile noting that he chose not to write of his fatal multiplicity but his fatal plurality – and it is in this plurality that we become privy to the performative within the self-categorising.
With two singers I was able to achieve and destruct a dialogue between the inherent and the contrived. Although performed as a first person plural – the text itself is appropriated from literary biography, memoir and myth. Therefore, the text is less led by the immediate force of Cravan’s plurality but rather its peripheral impact. In particular I see this piece as delivered through the voices of Craven but derived from the perspective of testimony.
Raymond Yiu: Composer
I worked out a rough structure consisting of short 'episodes' in which the two versions of Arthur Cravan care onstantly commenting and contradicting one another. To frame these short scenes together, I made use of the list of 'identities' taken up by Arthur Cravan to create a type of hypnotic music in which the texts are partly recognisable, as a reflection of the mysterious, undeterminable nature of Cravan.
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