‘twiceness’ is a performance I made with Shelley Hodgson (writer/sound artist). We have been aware of each other’s practice for some years but had not found a way to work together. This piece arises from collaborative working, the joint development of ideas, and finding a form for live presentation.
Two performers are present, in the space, as themselves, and as participants in an act of communication. Blocks of information, of narrative, of action, combining the found, the given, and the made, are built into a sequence of telling and showing. The performance questions interaction, engaging with gesture, with doubling, with repetition, with exchange. Underlying the performers’ relationship is awareness of loss and gaps, what is missed or missing, what doesn’t carry across.
The work asks questions that the performers unpick, rework, worry at. How do we tell each other things? How do we know we mean the same? How do we move between registers and codes, adapting and adjusting to fit, to ease, to stick? What happens if we try to do it again? Moving between choreographed passages and improvisation, the piece engages the audience with consideration of what it takes to get along with each other.
First performed as part of Mayfest 2024 in The House Studio, University of Plymouth on Wednesday 22nd May 2024. Second performance at SOAK Live Art, Leadworks, Plymouth on Thursday 25th July 2024.
Tender and playful gestures and conversations that question the urge to fill the gaps or give things (people, obiects and words] the space to be with each other in different forms of relation. Again and again. (Sarah Blissett @srblissett)
photos: Tamas Kovacs @tomkov_photo