Anthropophone

The lights finally dim over the busily whispering, expectant crowd of the Royal Albert Hall. The curtains fluidly rise out of sight and the stage illuminates, revealing the Anthropophone in all its naked glory. Six human bodies – presumably still alive – lie in two tiered banks in a semi-hexagon, arranged convex to the audience. Their morgue-like appearance sends a communal shiver down the spines of their onlookers, yet they remain still. Some of the audience notice the wires and microphones attached to, and near, various limbs of the six bodies.

From stage-right, a man in a black coat and tails walks proudly towards the bodies in the centre. He is met with a loud, yet controlled, cheer of respect and adoration. He stands behind the bodies facing the crowd, waiting for the noise to dissipate before he can begin. The audience quietens as he adjusts his lapel, cracks his fingers and clears his throat slightly.

Before beginning the concert, the musician finely tunes his instrument - adjusting the lay of arms here, and slightly widening the open mouth there. The six bodies are of varying shapes and sizes ranging from a petit young woman lying face down to a portly 16 stone man with his belly in the air.

The musician begins his recital by lightly drumming his fingers upon the upper chest of a muscular middle-aged man, a microphone picking up a soft rumble. The musician’s fingers move down gradually, as they do he increases the pressure until when his fingers are over the lungs he is making a deep grumble that progressively rises in volume as the artist raises the force of his fingertips. Suddenly the tapping fingers change to fists and palms as the hands slam the man’s chest creating a wonderful lung base drum and his palm descends swiftly on to the woman’s rear in a high-pitched bottom-snare. The musician flings his arms about, slapping, hitting, cupping and drumming against the limbs of the bodies.

With a pounding rhythm established, a second man enters the stage. He adopts the rhythm, beat by beat, until the original Anthropophonist is free to adopt the melody. He approaches two of the upturned bodies; the fat man and a stick thin man with slender cheeks. He takes a chin in one hand and holds the palm of his hand above the mouth. By popping on the mouths and changing how wide they are open, the master Anthropophonist creates a complex popping melody, complete with the odd flick to the cheek, upon the bassy face of the fat man and the tenor cheeks of the thin.

A second assistant enters to adopt this new melody, and the master musician approaches a woman on the far right whose extremely long hair is tightly pulled in a peacock-like fan of clamps. The Athropophonist pulls a bow from his belt and begins to glide it over the hair. The bow, connected to a radio mike, transmits the resonant vibrations between bow and hair, producing a stringed accompaniment to the cacophony of human music.

The music rises to a crescendo, and ends with six open palms falling in unison on the belly of the fat man, which rumbles like a liquid gong, quietening slowly for a full rippling five minutes.

Just before the last remnants of the gut- gong can no longer be heard the crowd erupt in applause and the Anthropophonists take their bows.