Mythic is a solo structured into seven interconnected sections and evolves from a quest for a movement language and aesthetic that is located in the personal, subjective, experiential and lived body of experience and extends to the trans-cultural and transpersonal to embrace ontological, spiritual and metaphysical concerns. Mythic searches for a language of representation informed by Luce Irigaray’s concept of the ‘sensible transcendental’ that challenges the binary oppositions embedded in spatial representations of the divine. Mythic draws upon Butoh, Expressionist lineages and Japanese aesthetics to expand spatio-temporal possibilities, vocabularies for self-representation and evolve physical languages embodying the emergence of something ‘other’ and ‘becoming other’. Mythic was informed by research into the philosophical legacy of Butoh founder Tastumi Hijikata and examines ideas contained in his essay ‘Wind Daruma’’, particularly his concept of the body as a mediator for the dead or the idea that the dead live on inside of us. Mythic is original in the interweaving of concepts. Hijikata’s ideas are explored in connection to photographic images of ‘ectoplasm’ and physical possession presented by 19th Century Victorian Spiritualist Mediums. Acknowledging the sophisticated technical trickery of these images, research drew upon the languages of film, electroacoustic sound and costume design to create an a contemporary experience of haunting or the ‘uncanny’. Mythic researches the embodiment of poetic and visual images, testing the kinesthetic, transformatory and choreographic potential of image scoring, initiating the deconstruction of the physical body, to allow an emergence of the other.

Mythic premiered at Trinity Laban, London Feb 2010
Funded and Commissioned by Trinity Laban.

Touring History:

University of Hull in Scarborough, work in progress presentation and after-show discussion, 18th November 2009.

Michaelas Theatre University of Roehampton 3rd November, 2010.

Harry Crook Theatre, Colstons Collegiate School, Bristol 12th October 2010.

Rich Mix, Shoreditch, London, 22nd January 2010.

Exeter Phoenix Arts Centre, Exeter November 9th 2010.

George Wood Theatre, Goldsmiths University of London, in collaboration with the Pinter Centre 16th March 2011.

Mythic was also presented as a lecture at The Performance Centre, Tremough Campus, Falmouth, 6th December 2010.

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/35594