Next spring, two companies known for pushing the boundaries of physical and dance theatre will be at The Place. Gecko will perform Institute in March followed by May Contain Food, the brand new dance show by Protein, with music by Orlando Gough, in April.
Gecko’s Institute, an exploration of what it means to care, was at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe earlier this year. Set in a warped world of emotional compartmentalisation and treatment, where memories are filed, relationships scrutinised and patients becomes carers and vice versa, four people undergo a series of extraordinary physical ‘treatments’ as they struggle to prepare themselves for the outside world.
Founded in 2001, Gecko has a reputation for generating unique worlds, recently showcased in The Time of Your Life, a new show developed especially for BBC Four’s Live from Broadcast Centre. It is the first time the company has returned to The Place since performing Missing in 2012.
Amit Lahav, Artistic Director of Gecko said, "Institute is underlined by the notion of care—who will care for us when the time comes? We have found people respond and connect to Institute on many different personal, often very emotional levels. We’re looking forward to taking The Place’s audiences on this intimate and surprising journey and seeing where it might end."
Work Place artist Luca Silvestrini’s company Protein returns to The Place with new show May Contain Food. Four vocalists and four dancers all sing for their supper in a piece of dance and music theatre that aims to provoke thinking on the sensory, cultural and social implications of food, with composer Orlando Gough’s music sung live.
Silvestrini said, “my interest in working with Orlando and singers results from years of creating works that use text and the spoken word. In my recent pieces, such as LOL (lots of love) and Border Tales, movement and speech complemented one another at both a physical and emotional level.
"This collaboration with Orlando has been a wonderful opportunity to understand and further exploit the expressive power of voice and text. We talked for years about making a piece of dance theatre around social occasions, mealtimes and having a good time and May Contain Food brings all these elements together.”