ABSTRACT
This essay interrogates ‘presence’ from the performer’s perspective inside a performance event – Told by the Wind 2 . Co-created by Kaite O’Reilly, Jo Shapland, and Phillip Zarrilli, Told by the Wind premièred at Chapter Arts Centre (Cardiff) on 29 January 2010 for an initial two-week run, was performed at Tanzfabrik (Berlin) on 27 March, and continues to tour internationally 3 . As noted in the final paragraph of Elisabeth Mahoney’s review for The Guardian, the performers’ ‘presence’ was central to her experience, reception, and critical response to the première performance. Told by the Wind
Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff: 29 January to 6 February 2010
Elisabeth Mahoney, The Guardian, 2 February 2010
Stripped of most elements we associate with drama, this intense meditation in movement revels in stillness. It’s so still at times, you worry that scratching your head or crossing your legs will be audible to all. Performers Jo Shapland and Phillip Zarrilli, with writer Kaite O’Reilly, draw on Asian aesthetics, string theory and the Japanese theatre of quietude to present something that is beyond linear narrative, character and gripping plot twists.
Instead, they offer fragments of memory, speech and gestures, composed in moments that have a haunting, painterly beauty to them. A man and a woman are on stage together at all times but, never connect; he speaks a little, tugged at by the past, she remains silent, trying to form words but expressing herself physically as she shuffles, runs and dances in bare soil.
With no dialogue or fathomable action to follow, you try to make connections even though everything resists them. Is she in the memory he speaks of? Is she a character in the music he is writing, or the dance he appears to choreograph? What happens, slowly, is that those nagging questions subside and a calmer understanding emerges. It’s all very hypnotic, with repeated small movements and shards of sentences, and it has the astringent purity of a haiku poem, though haiku seems positively wordy in comparison.
The performers have a remarkable presence, even when their movement is barely perceptible. This is a challenging production, but oddly affecting and quietly cleansing. On the opening night, the audience lingered at the end, as if not wanting to head back out into the noisy, demanding world.
