YES NO BLACK WHITE
(a Snowflake Sonata)
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"YES NO BLACK WHITE hones in on the questions of what causes us
to take offence, how offence itself has become weaponised, and what we can do about all this. (...) We begin to understand that it is our own individual responses that are really being put under the microscope – and indeed whether we are honest enough with ourselves to recognise this. (...) in this rare ballooning space, wrought with uncertainty and introspection, we may begin to ask more searching and sincere questions of ourselves than the more familiar vociferous ones which tend to come with built-in answers: yes, no, black, white." 
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Images by Nick Hynan
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SHOUT Festival, 6th November 2021, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
Images by Nick Hynan
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In years gone by, the old criticised the young for being reckless and rude. Nowadays, the young stand accused of being over-sensitive and lacking resilience, too quick to take – and too scared to give – offence.
Should we resist a world of trigger warnings and no-platforming – or welcome it? Are we more sensitive to ‘micro-aggressions’ – or just less willing to tolerate them? YES NO BLACK WHITE takes these ideas to task from a uniquely Queer angle, teasing the audience and refusing easy answers. As an audio-visual, lo-fi spectacular the performances elevates clicking through a PowerPoint presentation to an art form, interrogating the nature of offence: What offends you? How? Why? Ultimately asking, how will you respond? Following the structure of a five-part sonata and choreographed to a pumping classical-electronic soundtrack, YES NO BLACK WHITE serves as a kind of ink-blot Rorschach test for your personal offense-taking mechanisms. This audio-visual, lo-fi spectacular won't tell you what to think or feel, but it will test your buttons. Prepare for a cognitive, moral, and sensory attack on your psyche. The piece is a continuation of my ongoing investigations on the dramaturgy of lists, musicality, and the exploration of strategies to problematize meaning-making processes. |
Camden People's Theatre, London, 5th - 6th November 2019
Images by Orlando Myxx.
This special zine accompanying the piece extends the performance experience (available free here).
(The first public version was unveiled at the premiere on 5th November 2019 at CPT.)
(A second updated version was unveiled in the run up to the performance at SHOUT Festival, 6th November 2021.)