A Long Dramatic Pause
Live performance
Approx. 35 mins
2025
A Long Dramatic Pause is a live performance that explores strategies of resistance against ultranationalism and far-right politics through the vernaculars of photography and theatre. Delivered by a solo performer, the narrative comprises twelve theatrical vignettes that describe a photographic image, never directly showing it but instead bringing it to life through re-enactment and visual analysis.
At the heart of the photograph being described is a young woman, a figure of solidarity and defiance that the audience can identify with and project their political aspirations onto. As the performer moves in and out of observing and embodying this antifascist figure, the narrative gradually implicates the audience as if they had been unknowing protagonists in the image all along, shifting their focus away from the performer towards their own agency and collective presence.
A Long Dramatic Pause is a process-based and iterative project, developed anew with each staging. Every iteration emerges out of a collaboration between myself and a new performer, guided by a set of graphic scores that I have designed specifically for this work. Through a series of rehearsals, the performer and I discuss and interpret the scores together; come to shared decisions on movement, style and rhythm through negotiation; and co-develop a site-specific choreography for that particular iteration.
The first staging of A Long Dramatic Pause took place in collaboration with Francesca Matthys at Studio Voltaire, London in September 2025. All photos by Rita Silva.
Produced with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council.
