As part of the SPACED 2014 festival at Marylebone Gardens, The Lab Collective is presenting a piece called Between us. Two performers, sitting separately, in two very different spaces, yet approaching the same issue, like the two sides of the same coin; both unlike the other and yet integrally connected and inter-linked.
The subject: Loneliness
And that is when the idea of isolating myself, making myself lonely before the performance came into my head and wouldn’t go away. It has nothing to do with silence, as we are never really silent anyway. It’s about deliberate isolation even when you are surrounded by people.
It has to do with the lack of inter-personal and technological contact and media. Being alone with yourself.
The reason? No it’s not method acting. And it’s neither attention seeking.
I want to make myself remember. I want to wake up my demons and face them again. I want to be able to look each person in the eyes and offer them what I have with honesty. Not like something that I have memorised, that I have rehearsed 1,000 times, not like something that I am not afraid of and that I feel safe with. I want to feel as vulnerable, as scared, as sensitive as they do. To be at exactly the same position as they are; having something real to offer.
So I am going in. Every day at 12pm I will withdraw myself within my performance space, with no phones, no laptop, no music. I will avoid company and real contact/connection with others. I will only come out for the bare essentials. And there I will wait. I will wait until 7pm when I can have my first visitor, when I can at last share my story. Will you keep me company?