Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro is a performance of movement and voice that explores the fearfulness of the public body. The work explores the relationship between collective archetypes - the aggressor wolf/ the victim sheep/ the rescuer shepherd. These are three interdependent actors involved in the creation of fear-fuelled populist narratives. In order to complicate the binary perception of passivity and activism in this triangle, the five performers engage with each other and with the audience in a power play based on the tensions between these roles. The work is inspired by the aesthetics of the Baroque period and is called chiaroscuro, a painting technique characterised by a strong contrast of light and dark in the representation of reality. The choreographic material interprets elements of Baroque art: the symbolism of hands and faces, the brutality of bodies, theatrical gestures and the sense of threat. The work is specifically designed to be performed in public…