Motionhouse Double Bill

St. Bart's Theatre and Sitelines present a double bill from one of Britain's leading dance theatre companies. The event will also include a Q&A with some of the performers.

Captive
Performed by four dancers in a large cage, Captive is inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem The Panther and considers how a human, like an animal, can be plucked from normal life and plunged into captivity. Rendition has made the human experience the same as the animal’s and with confinement thrust upon the unsuspecting victim, the wild and free must find ways of expressing within the bordered and caged.

Powerfully physical, emotionally charged and extraordinary, Captive is a dazzling blend of dance and aerial work. In order to survive, the environment is constantly transformed though physical ingenuity. Pacing the cage and tumbling through a world turned upside down, which way is up as the cell of confinement gets turned on its head?

Underground
Performed by four dancers within a rocking tubular structure, Underground uses stunningly physical dance, emotional imagery and surprising aerial encounters to explore the new reality of train travel: the compressed intimacy of a crowded carriage; the crush of personal space; the studied ignoring of our fellow travellers and the tight fear of a dangerous stranger in the current climate of suspicion.

Travellers are thrown together in an unlikely alliance as graffiti artists paint their love in motion. Suspended at odd angles and riding the rhythm of the train, four characters are constantly drawn together then torn apart.