EMOTION: a surreal and beautiful dive into dawn
- Janejira Matthews
- Jul 25
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 1
We are greeted by a warm Summer dawn when we step out onto a school playground round the back of Siobhan Davies Studio around 4am. The sky is a dusty blue hue, a backdrop combined with Victorian brick. The “we” is a mix of audience and seventy-five performers, experienced and novel alike. Spanning different backgrounds, ages, and genders, the group have come together over two weeks of workshops to create EMOTION, a performance journeying through life stages. Directed by Annie Pui Ling Lok, Juan Ayala, Moyra Cecilia Silva Rodriguez, Sasha Mahfouz Shadid, and Andreas Levisianos, the piece’s solo and communal movement is saturated with personal feelings.
Probing the senses from its beginning, the only sounds are footsteps and cool air floating through limbs as we walk slowly through the playground. The performers find a stillness. They cup their hands over their ears, inviting the audience to join. I can hear my blood echoing from my palms as I mimic them. In the soft dawn light, we share surreal moments: rubbing hands, swaying gently in Tai-Chi-like movements with arms scooping up the morning’s breath. Mouths agape and palms turned outwards, the performers look awed by the day’s birth. It’s a quiet and slow-paced opening that grows once we head inside the rooftop studio.
Growth is the word here; bodies roll into the studio, flesh pressing against the floor. The performers lie on their fronts, initiating tiny rocking motions, slowing when the spine bends sideways to bring the gaze to a lifted knee. These odd movements are in fact naturalistic, echoing the developmental stages of babies learning to move and are sometimes used for warming up the body before contact improvisation. Given that some participants may find various movement practices forming EMOTION unfamiliar, each individual has clearly tackled new experiences with gusto.
Although the dancing body is at the centre of EMOTION, the piece takes a full-bodied approach by including vocal power too. A group transformation into a moving choir blending harmonies and basslines is mesmerising. Low long notes and a short, higher melody that feels like a journey buzz through my bones. It is the first, loud, definitive sound in a quiet morning, and is utterly beautiful. Also beautiful in a more extroverted way, is the karaoke section of the piece. Performers take up solos that see them scream free of any self-consciousness, dance their own way with simple happiness but ultimately express who they are. Whilst all this is going on, playful games of tug-of-war and short solo movements examine a playfulness and full spectrum of feeling that we all find in life. Although everything fits together well enough, it is sometimes hard to know what to look at with such a crowded space.
Every mover has a deeper connection with every section of EMOTION, and with one another. Despite being a large gathering of people, the sense of community is undeniable. EMOTION achieves what community dance projects should be doing: spreading dance to anyone who has the curiosity, forming connections between people of all backgrounds and addressing the everyday in an atypical way.
