Confined within an ethereal video cube, three critters pulse, pupate, swell and sink. Burrowing through a shifting digital undergrowth, bodies knot, untangle and evolve alongside the environments they inhabit.
Staying with the trouble requires making oddkin; that is where we require each other in unexpected collaborations and combinations, in hot compost piles. We become with each other or not at all.
Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene
Inspired by Haraway’s writing, RUINS explores transformation, adaptation and togetherness in a world marked by ecological and emotional upheaval. What forms of kinship become possible when humans are understood not as separate from nature, but entangled within it?
Experimental, ritualistic and sensual, the work is co-created with movement artists Philip Alexander, Rita Hu and Suzi Cunningham. Through expressive choreography, immersive scenography and a hypnotic soundscape by Cucina Povera, RUINS invites audiences into a subterranean realm where distinctions between human, creature and landscape begin to dissolve.
Part digital dreamscape, part ecological fable, RUINS imagines new ways of becoming through collaboration, mutation and collective survival.
“The body is better placed to help us think and feel. Becoming more critter lets us metamorphosize, loop around and through each other, and forge extreme collaborations. RUINS imagines bodies as tangled threads, revealing the interconnectedness of humans, machines and environment.”
“The choreography and intimacy of RUINS are striking, the most influentially abstract of the Manipulate Festival 2024 pieces.”
— Corr Blimey ★★★★
“Mesmerising and hypnotic.”
— North West End ★★★★
“A bravery and conviction that only a few are willing to face head-on; the dancers’ singularity makes this show a must-see.”
— The Skinny ★★★★
“A singularly trippy experience. This visceral exploration of inter-connectedness and cross-species awareness is a testament to immense ambition.”
— The Quinntessential Review ★★★★
“We started to ask ourselves: what if all organisms, including humans, are tangled up with each other? We experimented with the transience and liveliness of landscapes, ‘more-than-human’ rhythms, the knotting of bodies and the questions: do we need to undo ourselves in order to remake ourselves? Should we become inhuman to find humanity? What is our ecosystem?”
Credits
Concept & Direction — Bex Anson
Design & Digital Scenography — Dav Bernard
Movement Artists & Co-Creation — Philip Alexander, Rita Hu and Suzi Cunningham
Composer — Cucina Povera
Costume, Hair & Make-up Design — Saehee Simmons
Dramaturg — Lou Cope
Choreographic Support — Jack Webb
Additional Music — Jamie Grier
Research Consultant — Persephone Pearl
Production Photography — Brian Hartley
Producer — Feral
Tour Dates
Lanternhouse, Cumbernauld
2 February 2024
Manipulate Festival, Festival Theatre Studio, Edinburgh
Workshop
TERRAPOLIS: Movement & Scenography Workshop
28–29 November 2024
A two-day workshop exploring movement, image-making and scenographic composition, developed alongside the themes and creative processes of RUINS.
Presented as part of Open Futures 2024: Light Moves Festival, Limeric
Produced by Feral.
Supported by Creative Scotland, Manipulate Festival and Lanternhouse.