This performance is sold out! Please email contact@siobhandavies.com or call 020 7091 9650 to be added to the waiting list as tickets may become available. Equally if you can no longer make it, please let us know!
A new performance from Matthias Sperling in collaboration with Temitope Ajose, Ben Ash, Iris Yi Po Chan and Katye Coe. Commissioned by NEUROLIVE.
“To read what was never written.” …
“Reading before all language”… occurs in the “entrails, in the stars, or dances.”
Walter Benjamin *
Dance, science, and science fiction come together in this fourth and final performance from the NEUROLIVE project.
While the performers approach dancing as a process of ‘taking a reading’, intuitively interpreting their moment-to-moment embodied experience, this year, the NEUROLIVE team also stages an AI that augments this process. The AI is conceived as a system that reads multiple live data streams from the performers, the audience and the room to generate spoken interpretations of the emergent dance, like an interpretive oracle.
In this ritual-like, meditative performance, ‘taking a reading’ invokes associations with both magic and science at the same time: with the kinds of readings taken by scientific measurement devices, and more divinatory or magical readings, like the reading of palms, tarot cards, or tea leaves.
Readings of what was never written continues Sperling’s choreographic investigation into embodied ways of knowing as an intrinsic part of live dance experiences. For performers and audience members alike, this can span a generative meshwork of our bodily capacities for knowing that are variously ‘scientific’ (rational, languaged, explicit) and ‘magical’ (more-than-rational, felt sense, intuitive).
In their own ways, the performers, audience members, scientific team and the AI interpreter are all taking readings of what was never written.
This performance is both an artistic event and part of a scientific research process. NEUROLIVE is a 5-year interdisciplinary research project bringing artists, scientists and audiences together to study what makes live experiences special.
* From Walter Benjamin’s On the mimetic faculty (1933), quoted in Georges Didi-Huberman’s Atlas, or the Anxious Gay Science (2018), a text that has informed a series of choreographic works by Matthias Sperling.
In the Roof Studio
Event Schedule
There are different arrival times depending on your ticket. Read the Booking Details section below for details.
EEG Ticket arrival 1: 6.15pm
EEG Ticket arrival 2: 6.45pm
Bar opens: 6.45pm
Roof Studio opens: 7.15pm
Performance starts: 7.30pm
This is a seated performance lasting 60 minutes.
Tickets
General: £10
Bursary: £7.50
There are two kinds of tickets available: EEG and Without EEG. Read the Booking Details section below for details.
Booking Details
If you have questions about this performance and taking part in the NEUROLIVE study, please email contact@siobhandavies.com or call us on 020 7091 9650.
Please note that we expect this performance to sell out quickly! Additional tickets may be released on Tue 15 Oct. Once all tickets are sold out, we will run a waiting list and last minute spaces will advertised to this group. Please also keep an eye on our social media for updates.
EEG TICKETS
Book this ticket if you would like to contribute to NEUROLIVE’s research by wearing measurement devices, including an EEG, while you experience the performance.
What does an EEG Ticket involve?
Please watch this video to see what EEG participation entails and download the EEG info sheet here for full information.
- You will be invited to contribute to the research by completing two questionnaires; one before arriving and one directly following the performance.
- You will wear four measurement devices: an EEG (electroencephalogram) device that measures brain activity, eye movement sensor glasses that record eye movement, a breath band that measures breathing and a finger sensor that records your heart rate, skin conductance and temperature.
- On arrival you will be set up with the measurement devices, which will take approximately 35 minutes. After the performance, we will ask you to remain seated for a few minutes to collect additional brain data, then we will help you remove the devices.
- Eye movement sensor glasses cannot be worn with another pair of glasses underneath, please wear contact lenses. EEG devices may be worn with a hearing aid.
Arrival times for EEG tickets
- 6:15pm arrival: your EEG set-up will take place in the Research Studio on the first floor. After the set up there will be seating where you can wait until Roof Studio on the second floor opens at 7:15pm.
- 6:45pm arrival: your EEG set-up will take place in the Research Studio on the first floor. You can then go directly to the Roof Studio for the performance.
Please note that EEG devices are subject to availability, allocated on a first come first served basis. You are more likely to be guaranteed an EEG if you book the first entry time.
WithouT EEG Tickets
Book this ticket if you would like to experience the performance without wearing any measurement devices.
What does a Without EEG Ticket involve?
- You will be invited to contribute to the research by completing two questionnaires; one before arriving and one directly following the performance.
Please download the Without EEG info sheet for further information.
Credits
Created by Matthias Sperling in collaboration with Temitope Ajose, Ben Ash, Iris Yi Po Chan and Katye Coe.
Live Sound Design Joel Cahen
AI Creation Jamie Forth and Mirko Febbo
Costume Design Annie Pender
Lighting Design Marty Langthorne
Technician Mike Picknett
Filmmaking. Ana de Matos
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Matthias Sperling
Matthias Sperling is an artist, choreographer and performer, and is the Artistic Director of NEUROLIVE. His work includes creating performances in theatre, gallery and museum contexts, as well as extending to curatorial work and scientific research collaborations. His work has been presented at Sadler’s Wells, Tate Modern, Southbank Centre, Royal Opera House, Wellcome Collection, Dance Umbrella and Nottdance, among others. He has been a frequent collaborator with Siobhan Davies Dance, an Associate Artist with Dance4 and a Sadler’s Wells Summer University Artist. He created an adaptation of a solo choreographic score by Deborah Hay, and has created commissions for Candoco Dance Company and Weld Company among others. He completed his artistic doctorate in 2022 at De Montfort University, supported by Midlands4Cities in partnership with Dance4/FABRIC and Siobhan Davies Studios.
Funding
NEUROLIVE has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 864420 – Neurolive).
ACCESS AND AMENITIES AT SDS
Siobhan Davies Studios is mostly accessible, with lifts to all floors. There are two accessible parking spaces available on site which can be booked in advance. Blue Badge parking is also available nearby on West Square and Garden Row (for a full map visit the Southwark Council website). Our main door is power assisted.
Amenities include:
- Changing facilities*
- Communal showers*
- Toilets / wheelchair accessible toilets
- Kitchen: tea and coffee making, fridge, and microwave
- Snack Bar: We have a small selection of bars, drinks and food available to buy from the front desk.
- Shops: The closest shop is Superway Supermarket on Garden Row (4 min walk), the closest supermarket is Sainsbury’s on New Kent Road (7 min walk). We also recommend the Art Cafe which serves sandwiches, jacket potatoes and meals (3 min walk).
* Our changing facilities and showers are not fully accessible. Our closest publicly available and fully accessible changing facility is at The Castle Centre, a leisure centre 0.3 miles away from the studios. You can find full details of their features here.