Tactus (Kate Milligan, Olivia Davies, Jonty Coy & HIP Company)

Tactus: derived from Latin, ‘to touch’, also a term for a 15/16th-century rhythmic measurement.

In 2017, a renaissance flute was recovered from a shipwreck in the Markermeer, North Holland. Made materially fragile by the passage of time, the instrument was nevertheless preserved intact in its watery solitude for 500 years. Archeologists and historians can only speculate on the flute’s origin, directed by material clues, including a small roll of Germanic text found curled inside the instrument. Replicas have since been made of the flute, reviving a sound lost to the ocean for centuries.

The instrument’s journey unfolds in Tactus, a new audio-visual work by Tura’s Summers Night alumni Kate Milligan, Olivia Davies and WA flautist Jonty Coy. In a meeting of experimental music-making and historically informed performance, this intimate work explores the materiality of cultural heritage as it is transformed by time and water. Field recordings from the Markermeer mingle with chant, sunken voices imploring “Ave, maris stella” (Hail, star of the sea).

Coy is joined by early music ensemble HIP Company, in an exploration of renaissance music. Speculating on the flute’s likely journey down the Rhine River and time-traveling to 2024, the flute undergoes a renaissance in and of itself, giving new life to this instrument in the 21st century.

Produced by Tura and commissioned by the APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund, Tactus traverses time and place in a performance where postmodern and renaissance artistic practices unite to submerge audiences in an antique, experimental, sunken sound-world seldom heard in Australia.

Two performances Apr 19/20 at 7pm.