Theo Lee

Contemporary dance has a language problem. To many people it seems abstract and closed, as if it assumed a background knowledge they do not have. Within the scene, it is surrounded by words: statements, concepts and conversations that sound important and often say little, sometimes not even to the people who speak them. In a field where recognition depends on how a practice is presented, the ability to talk about work can quietly take the place of the work itself.

Theo Lee turns this into a culture podcast. The guest, Theo Lee, is a choreographer fluent in words that sound profound and offer nothing tangible. The host speaks for the general public: she wears an animal sleep mask and admires what she does not understand. At the edge of the light, a dancer nobody introduces keeps working: she rehearses, searches and gets better, without a name and without a seat at the table. When the microphones go off, guest and host can only shout at each other in silence: a conversation that never became one.

With dry humour, the piece asks: Who gets to be heard, and why? When does explaining art become a substitute for making it? And what happens to a body whose work no one talks about?