This work sits at the intersection of femininity, futurism, and folklore. The performance begins with an act of physical exhaustion, pushing the performers to their limits and foregrounding the labouring, disciplined, and historically regulated female body. From this depleted state, the work unfolds through a series of transformations, drawing on ancient female folkloric archetypes to reflect on the entanglement of past and future imaginaries of womanhood. By situating these archetypes within a speculative, futuristic landscape, the piece asks whether technological advancement offers genuine progress, or whether it instead reproduces and intensifies patriarchal constructions of femininity and the body.

 

Performed as a trio and adaptable to both indoor and outdoor contexts, the work brings into play figures such as the mermaid, the mother, the snake, and the witch, inviting audiences to consider how these archetypes continue to shape contemporary understandings of womanhood. Choreographically, the work draws on collective movement structures associated with folk traditions, which are disrupted through repetition, collision, and fragmentation.

 

The body is treated as object, and the object as body, echoing the conditions of a digitally mediated world in which boundaries between human and material, animate and inanimate, become increasingly unstable. Moments of shared rhythm dissolve into forceful, unyielding body-to-body impacts, where contact becomes hard, abrupt, and estranged. These collisions reflect a paradox of the digital age: heightened connectivity alongside a diminishing capacity for embodied intimacy and care. The tensions are set against the close physical and communal interactions of historical folk practices, prompting reflection on how connection is negotiated in the present.

 

Shaking emerges as a core physicality within the work, functioning both as a residue of exhaustion and a generative force, evoking states of release, instability, and resistance while disrupting controlled, idealised representations of the feminine body. Visually, reflective metallic materials evoke both robotics and futurity. Activated through performance, these materials shift into fluid, organic forms - suggesting clouds, rivers, and mythic creatures - highlighting how artificial systems reimagine relationships to nature, myth, and tradition.

 

Credits

 

CONCEPT, DESIGN, DIRECTION AND CHOREOGRAPHY: Imogen Reeve

PERFORMER COLLABORATORS: Allegra Vistalli, Jemima Colin. Hannah Durkan

APPRENTICE PERFORMER COLLABORATORS: Maerin Miles, Pippa Wright

SOUND: Devon Bonelli

DRAMATURGY: Beth Cassani, Ásgerður Gunnarsdóttir

COSTUME DESIGN, COSTUME REALIZATION: Rosie Whiting

LIGHTING DESIGN AND PRODUCTION MANAGER: Charlotte Woods

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Natalie Richardson

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PRODUCER: Shelley Hodgson

MARKETING AND PR: Julia White

PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO: Elly Welford

ASSISTANT: Katie Thomas

WITH THE SUPPORT OF: Arts Council England, Yorkshire Dance, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, University of Leeds, Stage@Leeds, Exeter CAT scheme, Exeter Phoenix, Dansit Choreographic Centre, Dance United Yorkshire.