curious

This is how I dream it. This is how it feels. And I am not a sailor. I cannot steer a craft. I cannot tie a reef knot. I cannot swim. But still this is how it ends. I am out here with the lost mariners, the castaways, the ship wrecked and the sea swallowed.

the moment I saw you I knew I could love you is the new performance by Leslie Hill and Helen Paris made in collaboration with film-maker Andrew Kötting, composer and sound designer Graeme Miller and performers Claudia Barton and Joseph Young. The piece is about ‘gut feelings’; fight, flight and freeze reactions; impulse, love and undefended moments. Designed for life-raft sized groups of audience members at a time, the performance is set in the belly of a whale.

The piece premiered at Chelsea Theatre, London on the 21st November and will touring nationally and internationally from March 2010. 

"There are a thousand beautiful moments: my favourites include a film of a woman floating adrift at sea projected onto a tiny Sealegs packet and a harrowing story of a childhood terrorised by a sword-swallower’s accident. It’s a rich and rewarding experience being immersed in this watery world." Total Theatre

12 March, Axis Arts Centre, Crewe
17-18 March, National Review of Live Art, Glasgow
10 April, The Bluecoat, Liverpool
3 May, The Junction, Cambridge
5-6 May, Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster
15-16 May, Arnolfini, Bristol
21, 22, 23 May, Basement, Brighton
3 June, Colchester Arts Centre
6-7 July, Exeter Phoenix, Exeter

the moment I saw you I knew I could love you is commissioned by Chelsea Theatre for SACRED 2009, Colchester Arts Centre and New Moves International for The National Review of Live Art 2010. It has been made with the support of a Wellcome Trust Arts Award, the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Brunel University, a residency at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Hosking Houses Trust and collaboration with scientists at the Wingate Institute of Neurogastroenterology.

photo Hugo Glendinning