An experimental performance at Reality and Its Disorders! 

 

In 2019 I started exploring through performance the sense of dis-quiet that I experience in certain pseudo public spaces in London.  I use the term dis-quiet to capture the way this can be almost sub-awareness and well below the level of anxiety, a sense that I just don’t feel quite right in a particular space.  I used a sound recording made at Neo Bankside to develop the choreographic pyramids, which were then used in a performance that others could join in if they wished.  I talk about this performance here.

 

The choreographic pyramids are used like dice, they are thrown and the drawn shapes on the sides are then used by participants to create a physical response to the idea of an apparently welcoming but actually unwelcoming space.  

 

For RAID I developed a new set of choreographic rules of engagement with the working title Dis-Quiet (Private) that explores in physical movement the types of dis-quiet and their management during shielding.

 

Whilst shielding on occasions I experienced a permanent low level of anxiety that I couldn’t quite put my finger on and was unable to deal with by taking action to reassert a measure of control over my circumstances.  This was interspersed with periods of lockdown lethargy.  But equally there were many occasions when I was able to assert my usual levels of equanimity on an “it’s a grand life if you don’t weaken” basis.  From my researches I am aware that emotions are experienced in the body and feelings are the labels we put on them.  I turned this experience into choreographic rules of engagement as a means to express the embodiment of these feelings through movement.

 

The video is a recording of a performance using the choreography dice at the exhibition Reality and Its Disorders at Espacio Gallery in September 2020.

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With thanks to Degrees of Freedom for the opportunity to take this project forward.