in pieces
in pieces is a collaboration between Tim Etchells and Fumiyo Ikeda, a solo performed by Ikeda. Comical, puzzling, emotional, intimate and veiled by turns in pieces combines movement, dance, written text, improvised speech and concerns itself with memory, with the processes of remembering and forgetting, exploring these both as they are felt and articulated by the body and as they are made manifest in language.
Formed out of fragments – one sense of the ‘pieces’ of the work’s title – the performance comprises an unstable, absurd, surprising, poetic and occasionally numbered catalogue containing remembered phrases, movements, narratives, emotional states, music and songs. Somewhere in the space between these things – between movement and speech, between past remembered and the unfolding present moment of the stage – the event of the performance takes place.
Fumiyo Ikeda has danced with Rosas since 1983. During the course of her career she has also chosen her own direction. She recently created the confrontational Nine Finger with Benjamin Verdonck and Alain Platel. Now she is joining forces with Tim Etchells.
Etchells is a writer and highly acclaimed director with Forced Entertainment, ‘England’s most brilliant experimental theatre group’ (The Guardian). Since it was set up in 1984, the company has developed a highly individual style. Its constantly recurring themes are today’s marvellous and complex world and the relationship between performer and audience. Earlier in the season they were guests at the Kaaitheater with Spectacular, a play that also offered a humorous and provocative look at contemporary society.
‘In movement and language I love what Fumiyo does - the way she does undoes words, blurs actions. I love the way she can shift her presence in movement, fading in the space of one second from something taut, hard and harsh to something soft, almost dissolving.’ Tim Etchells
direction & text Tim Etchells | creation & performance Fumiyo Ikeda | director’s assistance Sara Jansen | lighting design Nigel Edwards | set design Richard Lowdon | costume design Ann Weckx | technique Peter Fol (Kaaitheater) | production management Hanne Van Waeyenberge | production Rosas vzw (Brussels) | coproduction Kaaitheater, Sadler’s Wells (London), PACT (Essen), Théâtre de la Garonne (Toulouse), Festival d’Automne (Paris) | with the support of the British Council
