Butterfly Effect

This new work explores tipping points; the fulcrum of unasked for change, a moment when our whole life turns around on its axis and we know we are not the same, and cannot go back.

“I remember that it all started with sound – for her and for me too. Maybe it was the shouting that did it. That long and unending sound that vibrated the cells of the body with such violence, that they scrambled and we came out the other side chemically and molecularly altered.  A person who could no longer be what they were before. Because dad had so suddenly died. I saw my friend look at me horror flickering across her face. All that was social, all that was civilised and human erased by that sound. All that was left was animal, primal?

It seems that those primal instincts are more heightened now. The powerful need for home and family and for months after I am like a dog turning round and round in their bed getting it right before they settle down for sleep. Did I say months, it is a year and half later and I am still turning around in circles. The ground has worn away into a little groove. Sometimes I stop the turning and go for a snack.”
It is a piece about the things we do to cope with such loss to make it make sense or become acceptable. It is also about the beauty that grows out of the compost of these moments. About those funny and lovely moments that also always come and the ridiculousness of it all.

Performed by Vivien Wood,  interweaving voice, song, movement and text.