Kirili in Dialogue with

Steve Dalachinsky

American poet

Steve Dalachinsky

(photo© Angela Jimenez)

An eyewitness account

by Steve Dalachinsky

published in the album Billy Bang / Commandment

(for the sculpture of Alain Kirili), 1997

        Commandments count them at the foot of the PIETA flights of fancy FLIGHTS     it is the death and resurrection this flight  the hardboiled Language of sinner and saints <even they were once ones> he faces the music Faces birth and CULT/ure         Bang doubling on the notes and how far the strings can stretch/ stretches / (c)harmonic penultimate lyricism/ count 'em / birth death and insurrection/ original/ see just how far the strings can stretch from Mobile to Harlem on the BAMA SWING circuit.

           this rare private solo performance in the home/ studio of sculptor Alain Kirili and photographer Ariane Lopez-Huici with a small appreciative audience harking back to the great salon days spaceful of faces and cult/URE.

it is Easter Sunday in the great breath of the world and a finer clearer day for clarifying whys never was…Bang on the Commandments and walk within the Valley of.…eggs…pull it back from the music stand and watch the idols crumble…the solo so excited that the bow takes on a life of it's own for that infinite second.

                 COMMANDMENT: shape and form. dimension. stone. steel. wood. barking tree its rock hard roots clung to the ironore core of this stilted melody.bittersweet memory of exodus in the scraping high voice of slaves abandoned soon-to-be-spirit. (traveller go no further       no need to look for the Promised Land it is here where you left it here wherever you happen to be  )

…………no critics just DAYDREAMS listening as the sun goes down and the windows grey and Bang Stuffs Paganini into his violin case in this stressless late afternoon music sheeted room…living the commandments. count them. no need to go no further. the promised land is here where you found it. built it. held it. left it. forsook it and caressed it...lift the cup. cut the bronze down to it's jagged soul….we are all Friends in this massive movement that passes between us in the MUSIC ROOM…where even the shadows glow as they take on substance..racing thru the substance of our hopes toward a calm harmonious solution. and so much melody pursues.

           he knows he's gone. dressed up and out there in the dressed up manical baptism known as WORLD…a world of eggs. of finding and losing. And tiptoeing ever so softly…so he serenades this crazy jewel by singing SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT. sweetly. his way. maniacally. plucking out rhythms of freedom for the trip back Home. to calm the frazzled short /term nerves… "Swing Low Sweet Chaaar…… ..ee…ot..." plucks then stretches the strings   cuts and frazzles just to see how far they will go.....

………..flights of fancy flights and he the charioteer takes us on some sharp sharp turns/ monumental moments in the MUSIC ROOM. the darker sides of joy. but with a man like Billy Bang and all his struggles…there are no misgivings…. 

            night has fallen in all it's capacity and our eyes become light as we peacefully close down. go no further.

and he Becomes A New Giver of sound and in the Kingdom It Reveals Its Living Inspiration.

               sometimes we know things are off but we just don't know that they aren't on..like that "age old" question "Do you eat the Fortune Cookie for the Fortune or for the Cookie?" but anyone who listens to this Easter mojo with its delicate dedication to Sun Ra will know instantly what is real and what is (k)not (as THEY PLAN TO LEAVE.)

             Commandments. count 'em. carry 'em. break them down. to their common denominators. (c)harmonic penultimate cuts against the grain. Bang sculpting songs out of mettle in the Sculptors Loft. Creating shapes. Reshaping thoughts. rendering kind the metal. stamping. banging. exorcising the demons. expelling the heretics, and ultimately showing us the most sacred Commandment of all: to play and listen to MUSIC FOR THE LOVE OF IT.

S. Dalachinsky

NYC 1997

COMMANDMENT XIII, Alain Kirili, 1991

(photo©Zindman Fremont)

COMMANDMENT

(FOR THE SCULPTURE OF ALAIN KIRILI)

Album produced by Alan Schneider - Recorded by Daniel Goldaracena on March 30, 1997

at the loft of Alain Kirili and Ariane Lopez-Huici

Steve Dalachinsky, reading poetry, White street studio, NY, 04/2009

“ Je pense aussi à la prose beat, au rythme syncopé de la langue de Steven Dalachinsky, le poète brooklyner :

(…) and Charlie's babblin about that time in the park when he bambam a whamo saves us 3 Puerto ricans with knives (more like beercans) and me and paddy and Zeek (oh right seek zeek reeking real gone brainy 6 ft psycho type (…) 

Thierry Dufrêne

excerpt from the text Alain Kirili : Statuaire, published in the Exhibition Catalogue at the Museum of Grenoble, 1999