Salamèche

Perfect dramaturgy.
– Marina Gržinić

Some Possibilities ​is a stage work constructed out of ‘weak choreographies’: simple task-like scores that are easy to perform. The two performers jog, walk, bounce, and tap. Each of their uncannily synchronous shifts is preceded by one of them asking, “What about this?”

Over the course of 40 minutes, these pedestrian dances are looped, swapped and gradually modified. The apparent ease of the choreographies allows the performers to sustain a softly-spoken conversation of fleeting thoughts. Their self-interruption and mutual questioning cultivates a meditative reflection within the audience (“yes, what about this?”) on how and why they have gathered to watch this display.

The two bodies sustain an eerie distance between them as they undertake the same action in the same space. Performed nearly entirely in unison, the piece ​reveals asymmetries and minor rebellions of their awkward and imprecise bodies.

Some Possibilities was an important work for us. It counters any easy and cliché claims about performance necessarily being a site of empathetic exchange or harmonious collectivity, and instead insists on the pleasures of the uncertain relation of strangers. It was also a way to think about choreographies of fidgeting (errant and distracted movement), and the nuances of commitment, attention and exposure that informs all of our performance work.

Stage performance: First shown Michaelis Theatre, University of Roehampton, London. September 2016.

Further performances at Fiver Fridays with Gareth Cutter (Chisenhale Dance Space, London, May 2017) and conference Dialogues on Dance, Philosophy and Performance in the Contemporary Neoliberal Moment, (Coventry University, June 2017).

Photos by Ariadne Mikou.