equaldoubt

Home

2007-11-26T14:45:00.013Z

Welcome to the Home Page of Equaldoubt

August up-date...

It is confirmed that 'Hoodwink' will be developed with the assistance of BAC in London during a Back-Room Residency in early October.

July up-date...

'Next Village' will be at NT in London for three weeks of Research and Development

'Hoodwink' has been invited to the Rodara International Festival of Mime, Physical Theatre and Dance which will be held in Puebla, Mexico in December. It has also been invited to 'Malta' International Festival of Theatre in Poznan, Poland for July 2009.

May up-date...

Eqdbt will be performing 'Suffocation' in Warsaw, Poland on the 6th September. The venue will be Teatr Wytwornia in Stara Praga, the dilapidated and enormously enigmatic East bank district of Warsaw.

Also Equaldoubt have just opened a MySpace page which will feature, amongst pics and information, some original music from performances and the possibility to dialog with us.

regards

eqdbt

NEW for 2008 - this year we are developing two new works:

'Hoodwink' (working title) oscillating around the theme of 'oppression' and looking at devices of manipulation in modern culture.
How reliant/addicted to technology for information? How much do we rely on what we are shown? What would happen when the world turns off?
This will be a devised physical and visual theatre performance incorporating elements of observational technology, direct audience interaction and new media. Inspired by contemporary texts revolving around modern dystopian society by H.Pinter, A.Burgess and F.Kafka.
New for us is the process of 'scratch' or working progress performances which we have chosen to adopt as the basis for our material development.
We will be developing this work with Marcin Rudy from Song of the Goat.
Scheduled to begin mid-summer 2008.

'Next Village' (working title) looking at traveling, immigration and questions related to the concept of 'Home'. Focusing specifically on the wave of Polish immigrants in Britain since 2004.
Inspired in part by the short story 'The Next Village' by Franz Kafka:

My grandfather used to say: “Life is astonishingly short. Now, in my memory, it is so compressed that I can hardly understand, for example, how a young person can decide to ride to the next village without being afraid that—apart from accidents—even the time allotted to a normal, happy life is far too short for such a journey.”

Scheduled to begin production in autumn 2008.

For more information please contact us on equladoubt@equaldoubt.org.uk

If you have seen any work of ours and wish to make a comment, please visit the forums link

Equaldoubt performances to date...

2007-11-22T13:00:00.000Z

Most recent:

2006 'SuffoAction' (160 min) - Time-based durational performance commissioned by Projekt Praga for the Fabryka Snów festival in Warsaw, 2006. Exploring two characters through constant repetition of cause and effect/action and reaction.

2006 'Trails' (45 min)- Arts Council of Wales funded research and development period working with legends of Faustus.

2005 'The Hollow Men' (15 min) - Welsh Independent Dance 'Dance Bytes' funded project inspired by the T.S.Eliot poem of the same title.

2005 '3' (50 min) - Three apparent strangers are trapped in an attic space as flood waters are rising around their building. An abstract performance inspired by the event of Hurricane Katrina and the turning of global consciousness toward the altering climate.

2004 'Suffocation' (50 min) - First work and present flag ship performance of Eqdbt. Two people and their table exposed the dark underbelly of relationships and the cyclical, ever hopeful nature of habits.

Eqdbt Video

2007-11-12T15:00:00.007Z

'The Hollow Men' 2006
60 second trailer
(photomontage)

'3 (by 2)' 2005/6
3 minute trailer
(from performance in '06)

'Suffocation' 2004
6 minute trailer
By Steepways Productions(2005)

Video coming...

'Trails'

Contact Us

2007-11-12T12:32:00.001Z

Equaldoubt

Co-Artistic Directors

agnieszka blonska - agnieszka@equaldoubt.org.uk

sean palmer - sean@equaldoubt.org.uk

For information regarding forthcoming performances or workshops please email your query to;

info@equaldoubt.org.uk

'SuffoAction' Images

2006-07-02T21:18:00.000+01:00

Images by Kevin DeMaria

'Trails' (2006)

2006-01-01T11:04:00.001Z

A piece of physical theatre in a contemporary interpretation of the Dr Faustus legend based on Mann, Marlowe and Goethe's texts.

The entire performance is set to live music of classical composers inspired by the Faustus story - Mahler, Berloiz, Liszt, Gounod and Wagner. It's played by an accordionist and sang by an actress with the distinctive performance style and elements from traditional folk music from Eastern and Western Europe (we are interested in these parts of Europe, because of the roots of the story and our cast).

The performance revolves around a character of the devil, which is built on myths collected from traditional cultures of the countries mentioned above. Despite that, he has the form and physicality of an orchestra conductor – in our interpretation, he is the one who controls music, actors and action. At the same time, as a paradox, he is guided by Faustus, the composer (as in Mann's version).

Because perhaps nothing is happening for real. Maybe everything takes places in Faustus' mind...

Moral dilemmas and events are played out along side this unusual use of classical music interacting with the animated bodies in space.

As 'Equaldoubt' we wish to draw the audience into Faustus' conflict between spirituality and sensuality; and through music and physicality engage the audience visually, aurally and emotionally.

Presented to Arts Council Wales at the end of R&D in January 2006

Directed

Sean Tuan John

Performers

Agnieszka Blonska
John Norton
Sean Palmer

Live and Original Music

Will Mepham

Supported by ACW funding
Shown at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff 2006

'The Hollow Men' Images

2005-12-02T19:51:00.001Z

Images by Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

'The Hollow Men' (2005)

2005-12-01T21:43:00.002Z

Photo by Chapter Arts Centre

A performance exploring the dark, haunting, pained and empty world of two characters inspired by T.S.Eliot's poem of the same title. The poem is a commentary on increasingly alienated individuals of the modern post industrial, post (1st) world war existence. Questions of identity, meaning and religion are woven into the fabric of a text continually evolving, descriptive of place, at times evoking children's song and at others worshiping prayer, reminiscent of one's own 'life journey/s'.

The over bearing thrust of the work for us was the protagonist's evolution of hope (from hope to hopelessness) and the recognition of their own material and spiritual search being empty. Characters seeking meaning in a richly symbolic and iconografic place which boasts and promises much for the individual, but over time the flames of hope are smothered and so it concludes in a dull cadence of finality - in fact, in 'a whimper'.

'The Hollow men' was conceived and put together for the second phase of the WiD (Welsh Independent Dance) dance competition 'Dance Bytes' 2005, held at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff. Equaldoubt used the T.S.Eliot poem of the same title as the point of departure for movement and abstract narrative.

Directed/Choreographed

Equaldoubt

Performed

Agnieszka Blonska
Sean Palmer

Music

Leka-Poleka by ZigZag Trio
Dejo Dance - Emir Kusturica
Bulgarian Dance - Emir Kusturica

Seen @

'Dance Bytes' Wid Dance Platform 2006

'3' Feedback Forum

2005-07-03T22:21:00.001+01:00

If you have seen '3' and wish to leave a comment please do so here:

'3' Images

2005-07-02T20:37:00.000+01:00

Images by Michal Iwanowski
michaliwanowski.com

'3' (2005/6)

2005-07-01T10:50:00.005+01:00

Inspired by recent world events and reactions; ‘3’ looks at the hopelessness and the hope sought in terminal situations, the guilt of survival, the pleasure found in reinvention, and the fear of being misunderstood.

Dark, painful and cold, yet stuffy.

Circumstances have forced three together in an attempt to escape. Cramped with no fresh air, no food and accompanied by a Siren’s song of rushing water outside singing the impending end. ‘3’ digs deep into the meaning of loneliness and the fear of a conclusion before you are understood. Lights out before the last page.

Noah was prepared, but he had been warned.

“But what happens if one of the Ants gets eaten by one of the Anteaters?
What have you got then?”

‘3’ is the second performance to come from Equaldoubt since their establishment in 2004 and Debut performance ‘Suffocation’.

‘3’ was originally developed in co-operation with ‘Darkman’ in the autumn of 2005 for the Experimentica Festival at Chapter Arts Centre.

It has been developed in association with;

Chapter Arts Centre
BAC
FRESH festival 2006

Directed

Phil Mackenzie

Performance text

Owen Thomas
Equaldoubt

Performed

Agnieszka Blonska
John Norton
Sean Palmer

Soundscape and Effects

acoustic wallpaper

“Equaldoubt, probably the most exciting act to come out of Wales in recent times”

David Adams, Western Mail 2006

Seen @

Chapter Arts Centre
tactileBOSCH gallery
Aberystwyth Arts Centre
South Street, Reading
FRESH Festival '06

'Suffocation' Feedback Forum

2004-07-03T17:29:00.001+01:00

If you have seen 'Suffocation' and wish to leave a comment please do so here:

'Suffocation' Images

2004-07-02T17:50:00.000+01:00

Images courtesy of Malta International Theatre Festival, Poznan, PL

Photos by Amber Clements

Show image by eqdbt

'Suffocation' (2004)

2004-07-01T15:11:00.004+01:00

Winner of 2006 'Debut' prize
on the
International Theatre Festival Malta, Poland.

A powerful, visceral, darkly humorous and yet subtle and sublime physical performance. It’s happened or is happening to all of us and yet we carry on as if life is normal. Two meet, fall in love, want to spend the rest of their lives together but never truly face each-other until… “Suffocation” takes place around a table, squashed in the corner of some room somewhere along with the audience. Forced into intimacy with the characters, the audience are made privy to the events which contributed to the apparently decaying relationship. Psychological games are magnified as they vie for their position, and as the struggle intensifies, so their emotions are externalised and physicalised.

Two people, two cultures, two languages, two paths, under one roof... Suffocation.

Suffocation is the first piece of work from the Equaldoubt. It was the company’s conscious decision to traverse performance styles previously unexplored in work - minimal text, choreographed movement, modern music and silence – in order to challenge their creativity. The resulting performance straddles theatre, dance and performance whilst, due to the nature of the narrative, remains accessible to a very wide audience, regardless of age, race or religion.

Equaldoubt makes experimental physical and visual work that explores the edges of emotions through physicality, music and theatre. The performance is a mixture between psychological and physical play. Creators try to challenge the audience by taking them into an unknown paradoxical adventure full of surprising pictures - from realism to abstraction.

Devised

Equaldoubt

Performed

Agnieszka Blonska
Sean Palmer

Music used

'Be my Husband' Nina Simone
'All that Jazz' smooth jazz mix
'Raindrops are falling on my Head' smooth jazz mix
Bill Laswell
'Quiet Simple Studies' Greg Goodale

Project Mentor

Jim Ennis (Art.Dir. Earthfall)

Audience reactions/ Press reviews
(Quotes from articles and audience comments)

“Individually accomplished, together they are startlingly exciting and accessible.”

Karen Price, ‘New Kids on the Block’ ITC Wales, November ‘05

“Equaldoubt make a stunning debut performance, a tour that combines domestic realism, manic comedy and energetic physicality with a truly impressive confidence.”

David Adams, Western Mail, July 2005

“[Suffocation] Leaves you emotionally winded”

Laura McDermot, Young Producer BAC, June ‘05

“Saw this last night and was so glad I did. It was beautiful, fresh and loaded – well done all! If anyone’s around tonight/tomorrow definitely go and see this!”

Tracy Harris, June 2005 (Theatre in Wales forum)

“Great stuff – beautiful images, compelling performances and witty story telling. What a show – physical theatre of the highest quality. Some excellent table work! …Make sure you don’t miss out.”

Alex Ferris, June 2005 (Theatre in Wales forum)

"Equaldoubt have quickly established themselves as one of Cardiff's most exhilarating new theatre companies.”

Chapter Arts Centre, June 2005

As Seen @

Chapter Arts Centre 04,05
tactileBOSCH art gallery
Coed Hills Rural Arts Space
The Space
South Hill Park 05,06
BAC
Arts Depot
Alsager Arts Centre
Prema Arts Centre
Glamorgan University
Octoberfest '05, BAC
FRESH performance Festival 2005
Oxford Playhouse BTS
Poznan Cultural Centre, PL
Polish National Theatre, Warsaw, PL
Malta International Festival of Theatre, PL
Puebla International Festival of Mime, Mexico
Presov International Festival of Theatre and Aesthetics, Slovakia