WHO KNOWS WHAT

What can actually happen, here and now, in this space, while we are here together?

WHO KNOWS WHAT was a full length dance work presented in Next Wave festival 2010. It was developed through Next Wave’s Kickstart Program, and supported through residencies at Lucy Guerin Inc and Performance Space.

In Who Knows What, the audience stands around the room, and the performers mingle and introduce themselves. Without any introduction it begins.

They stop and reconfigure the audience again and again, leading them across the space, constantly reframing their point of view. They see each other across the room, a reminder that we are all here navigating this real space together.

How do we encounter the tension in the room, this feeling of being exposed, implicated in this interaction?

These feelings come through in our bodies, folding arms, tension in the shoulders, the face, the physicality on edge. We try to shake it off, but it’s still there. We see the sceptical reserve we use to keep our distance revealed in the faces of those across the room. The tensions bubble up, the face overheats, anxiety turns to frustration.

It’s a bit awkward, but maybe if we can lean into it, we can let it soften. Maybe we can breathe through it and create the space we need to just be together without an agenda?

“Our social and personal defense mechanisms made manifest in movement. A metaphor for exposing and protecting oneself.”

- Ruth McIver review for Arts Hub