Dancing On Eggshells

Created by Steve Sowden & Hugh Nankivell in collaboration with the Choral Engineers.

Dancing on Eggshells is a hallucinatory choral performance by a community choir unlike most others. It is the second part of a politically-inspired triptych and has been performed twice to ecstatic, confused and convulsed audiences who have come away with eggs and a new, shared understanding of the formal art of 21st century negotiations.

Last March, to coincide with the Invoking of Article 50, we created a new litany for 4-part choir, triangle, electric guitar, violin and glockenspiel. We called it Invoking 50 Articles and gave ten performances in the SW of England. We are already thinking about the concluding part for next year. Perhaps it will be called The Tower of Babel.

As of now, 2018, we are at the crunch negotiation stage. We started making this piece together last Autumn. It still feels brand new, mysterious and honestly a little scary. We are looking forward to hearing what you think it is about.

The piece lasts for about 56 minutes, during which the choir are set in some kind of opposition to each other. The technical details of the negotiations are left vague, but the subject is roundly egg-based. Where/who do we get our eggs from? How do we eat them? Upon which end do we break them?

The brittle talks are instigated, facilitated and watched over by a digital entity known only as the Speaker (Jonathan Croose). He guides the negotiators through a series of increasingly bizarre pageants wherein eggs are broken and danced over and eaten. The Speaker’s purpose remains unclear and perhaps nefarious, is he trying to solve this divisive situation or prolong it? Who is pulling the strings (or writing the algorithms) and to what ends?

Throughout the occasion, we glimpse a curious Black Egg (Jackie Oates) with an ethereal singing voice and a simple message of peaceful unity that becomes dangerous when taken out of context.