With Womens Work: Auclair - Ruzunguzungu

Thursday, April 15th, at 8pm EST, ISSUE is pleased to stream Ruzunguzungu a new work by British-Rwandan musician and sound artist Auclair. The piece is part of the With Womens Work series, commissioning artists to interpret and respond to scores included in Womens Work, a magazine first edited and self-published in 1975 by Alison Knowles and Annea Lockwood.

Notes from Auclair on Ruzunguzungu:

In Rwanda, homes were traditionally built as roundhouses - an architectural form that would begin with the technique of ‘walking the cord’. A cord is attached to a stake planted in the centre of a chosen plot of land, you step the cord out to the desired radius and then walk the cord around the stake, marking a good circle in the ground, this perimeter defines where you will build the outer wall of your inzu (house). This is repeated to mark out the front and back courtyards, maybe other buildings and a compound perimeter, forming a constellation of circular spaces. Under the influence of Carole Weber’s Stamping Circles, this practice in turn(s) got me thinking, what if I transform this into a ritual? What might come out? What sonic feedback will it create? Is each circle I move through a return ‘home’? Whatever that means?! Walking the cord, I orbit around my centre...whatever that means! The Ibitekerezo myths describe how when the deity Sabizeze was exiled from heaven, he called for his hunting dog, Ruzunguzungu (circling).

indaro = a small hut for spirits
abazimu = ancestral spirits
rimwe = 1
kabiri = 2

Film by Sophie Clements and Auclair
With thanks to Luisa Gerstein and Heloise Tunstall-Behrens.

The piece responds to the “Stamping Circles” score by artist Carole Weber included in Womens Work Volume #1, 1975.

Auclair is a British-Rwandan music and sound artist. Her work explores rhythm, voice and electronica - treating everyday life like new mythologies and taking an embodied approach to exploring ideas with sound. Her versatility has lead to a wide range of projects and collaborations including: live rework / scoring of Afro-Brazilian classic Black Orpheus with Charlie Dark; Beck's Song Reader Live; multi-sensory concert for blindfolded audience The Sensory Score; choral sound piece about bees, The Swarm; musique concrète series made from recordings of buildings, Four Points Talk; In Waves for the Roundhouse Choir; Dawn Chorus Live exploring birdsong and the human voice with Marcus Coates; community multi-arts residency Co-Create; and more recently working with pioneering Rwandan drum ensemble Ingoma Nshya. Her latest work Munganyinka is a Transformer, a Zeitgeist / The Riot Ensemble commission, premiered at HCMF 2020. She is also a member of vocal groups Deep Throat Choir, The Quorum and Blood Moon Project.