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.