Over 4 weeks in November and December of 2018, I worked with 37 nineteen year olds and created a 25 minute performance that explored the experience of stillness.
At the start of the course, I was not sure how this would work as there were many factors that seemed at odds with each other. For starters performance and stillness are not terms that often go together. Secondly, a performance with 37 untrained 19 year olds could also be a challenge and finally, stillness and 19 year olds! Those were not words that you came across in the same sentence very often.
In the end we created a structured improvisation that turned out to be an extremely meaningful experience for the performers as well as a pretty powerful piece for the audience.
Below are some pictures and reflections from the journey of going nowhere.
Sometimes it was tough:
“Like actually not doing a lot, is difficult. It was just too damn difficult to get into a "comfortable" position for the body to stand and adjust to the situation. Then comes the fidget stage when my legs gave in and i started literally shaking.”
“My body feels tired, and I think doing absolutely nothing is hard, tiring and requires efforts.”
Sometimes it was confusing:
“I personally always felt that it is a waste of time when you are doing nothing or being still. However, as I explored the act of stillness, I felt very uncomfortable and new at the same time. It doesn’t often happen that you want to continue doing something but at the same time you want to get out of it too.”
“Time behaved funny today. The standing exercise lasted around 16 minutes but I couldn’t believe it was more than 4. Time is relative to our perception of reality. I wonder how much time can be affected when we're not interrupting ourselves with a constant stream of tasks and information.”
Sometimes it felt wonderful:
“Standing still doesn’t feel like I am holding onto anything anymore, it is becoming more effortless and seems to be more of an act of letting go.”
“This time my body was still but not of any external instruction, but mostly because it felt the need to pause within. It might be just a second but feels like an hour.”
“I felt like my mind was coming together with my body.”
Sometimes it was transformative:
“There was a point during the attention activity where the moment I opened up, I felt a tingly sensation run in my body, from the base of my feet to the tips of my fingers, like electricity, but gentler.”
“Allowing space, stillness and silence to come between us encourages that deeper connection that helps build the piece.”
And sometimes its magical:
“It was the result of my mind doing absolutely nothing. Everything was still and for a staggering second, nothing mattered, not my thoughts nor my actions, just me existing.”