A huge inflated plastic bubble fills the theatre space, we remove our shoes and are ushered in 8 at a time, told to stand, sit or move around as we please (but like most audiences, don’t budge once we decide to sit!).  The bubble is constantly being filled with air and we must enter quickly so the entrance can be zipped shut again to avoid too much deflation.

Once inside the audience huddle in small groups on the floor.  There is an air of anticipation and curiosity. Throughout the space hang white mesh sculptures moulded into the shape of body parts.  These ghost images bob up and down in the space as the air level fluctuates and the final members of the audience are let in.  Three dancers enter with them and begin to walk about the space. They appear human but there is something very alien about them at the same time.  A soundtrack with a voice begins, and the dancers are signing the words, the voice repeats itself ‘we have decided not to die’.

This slightly unnerving declaration leads the dancers to interactions with the hanging sculptures.  They pull them free from the strings that hold them and take them on like a skin for a while only to shed them again. Are these shapes familiar, forgotten or future memories I wonder?

At times the audience has to shuffle out of the way as the dancers are so intently focused on reaching the objects or each other.  One dancer sits with a group, resting their face in their hand, covered with a fitted mask of the same shapes, appearing deep in thought.  The others are rolling and falling awkwardly around the space, seeming not to know how to walk, their legs and feet behaving like tendrils seeking their way in the dark.

The light and sound come from outside the dome, and when one dancer unzips a corner to escape we watch as their shadow moves around outside. There is something ominous in the way they begin to walk on and squash our precious bubble, again sections of the audience are forced to move or be enveloped by the dancer climbing on our home which collapses under their weight to change the shape of our small world. The other two creatures follow out of the space, the light and sound dim and we are released from dreamscape to the interval.

When we re-enter the bubble is a quarter of the size, a giant pillow filling just half the room and we are invited to stand or sit in the other half and observe this new landscape.  This sculptural form is now manipulated by the dancers to take on many different images; waves, clouds, a mountain, a hidden pathway through tall grasses.  Lit from behind at times allowing us to see through to what should be unseen, like an x-ray.  Revealing and then hiding the dancers in this changing landscape. We can hear and feel the changes in the air filled structure as it is pulled and pushed into different formations.

A strange calm brings proceedings to an end, or is it a beginning?  There is an orange glow; I feel like I’m looking at a giant womb or egg and inside I can see a tiny life form at rest.

Jenny Parrott

25th October 2019