What exists in the ‘thin places’ where the distance between the living and the non-living is blurred?
Transcending narrative, complex stories seep from the earth’s sediments, affirming the unsettling feeling of a presence existing where logically it should not. Five shapeshifting figures navigate their arrival. Evoking a compelling cycle of the Seasons. Spring/Beginning: rebirth and resilience. Summer/Freedom: memory and desire. Autumn/Resistance: trespass and dispossession. Winter/Survival: journeying and hope. Their stories of the land transcend narrative, making space for an eerie presence of the spectral past to become momentarily accessible. This Is The Land could not be more relevant to the issues of our times – ecological crisis, social inequality, and political repression of dissenting voices – whilst raising these in a highly original way.
This Is The Land, an innovative creative collaboration featuring: Leeza Jessie, Xavier De Santos, Samuel De La Torre, Alice Barton, Sofia Velez, Composer John Baggott.
Mary Steadman is Artistic Director of Red Room Productions, we create a unique combination of dance, theatre, live and mediated technology. Through film, live vocal-looping, quirky dance, and imagistic movement, our multi-layered approach to making immersive performance experiences seeks to rewild the imagination. Our abstract-expressionistic style attunes to the eerie unheard voices of Outsiders; human and non-human forces that may be forgotten or excluded from history.
Previous shows toured in the UK and Europe: 'Red Room' toured to festivals in Russia, Belgium, Belarus, winning awards as Best Director and Best Show, 'Kusse' toured to Belgium, 'Borderland' , 'The Strange Geometry of Time' toured to Dreams before Dawn Festival in Paris , 'Dwelling'.
'stunningly constructed movement'
'I can still clearly remember the images coming alive on the stage after years'.
‘Wow – bowled over by this amazing production - abstract expression, leaving the Audience to make their own connections’
‘a multitude of cleverly poetic thoughts, feelings, sounds, movements, words, song and silence – it moved me so profoundly’
‘Great show... terrifying frantic moments, looks, and glances as if from Paula Rego images’
Press & Reviews
Wildfire magazine
(Kusse) - 'I have never in any medium – seen the portrayal of the death of a love affair that so resonated so strongly with my own experience. (….) The gold of passion is easily transmuted into the heavy lead of recrimination'.
Cast & Creative Team Director: Mary Steadman
Performers: Xavier De Santos, Alice Barton, Samuel De La Torre, Sofia Velez, Leeza Jessie
Composer: John Baggott.