ABSTRACT
UK-based performance company Clod Ensemble has an ongoing fascination with medicine and performance. As well as making original performances driven by movement and music in theatres, dance houses, galleries and public spaces, the company’s pioneering Performing Medicine programme offers arts-based support, learning and professional development opportunities to people working in health care settings. In this chapter, Artistic Director Suzy Willson reflects on their production Placebo (2018), which explores both the beauty and the limits of scientific analysis and interpretation as well as the expectations, beliefs and aesthetic preferences we bring to all our encounters – including those that take place in both health care settings and theatres. Is a red pill (or costume) more powerful than a blue one? Does the packaging affect the potency of the pill or performance? What are the active ingredients? Does it matter whether something is fake or real? Is the performance itself a medicine – a placebo – a sugar pill?
