Against Separation

This was originally written as a programme note for the Theatertreffen 2020.

In Barbara Ehrenreich's book Dancing in the Streets, she talks about the origins of dance as a way to confuse predators, to take on much bigger beasts than ourselves. Alone, we are small and weak, but when we move as one, we are baffling, multiform, hard to fathom.

That's the image that comes to mind, thinking about "Against Separation." This is an isolated time, but it's driven home how much, as humans, our survival depends on moving, if not as one, then as part of the same dance.

So much political energy is spent in contesting the humanity of others. In this moment, we must recognise the ways in which we are bound up together, and have no choice but to move together, or perish.