With motherhood as a point of departure, Aftermath explores the sense that ‘something is over’ and questions what comes next.
During the making of the show, Recacha carried out an outreach programme for mothers and their small children, immersing herself again in that period of early childcare and its impact on the mother’s sense of identity and agency.
Inspired by Recacha’s own experience of motherhood and the social isolation that can accompany it, Aftermath questions what it means to live in a ‘post-everything’ world – post- feminist, post-truth and now post-time. The show imagines a world where the characters are dead, where change is no longer an option and no future awaits. Is motivation possible in such a world?
The audience is seated within the performers’ arena. They are part of the dancers’ journey and yet they are not directly involved. Aftermath comments on our reluctance to act in the face of certain situations, and on the normality of this passivity.
“giddy, ridiculous and amusing two-hander”
“Eleanor Sikorski and Charlotte Maclean weave patterns of wit and absurdity in Eva Recacha’s quietly radical show”
“The pair heat up to a giddy, edge-of-madness energy reminiscent of early French and Saunders.” – The Guardian
“It’s perfect casting with Sikorski as the acerbic, calculating wit and Mclean as the mercurial creative force; their two trajectories start on a fragile thread and fuse together to the point of familiarity and mutual admiration.”
“With its cross between The Private Life Of and Monty Python, Aftermath is as much an exploration of ennui as a picture of the divergent elements of artistic endeavour.” –
Writing About Dance
Coreography: Eva Recacha in collaboration with Charlotte Mclean and Eleanor Sikorski.
Sound design: Alberto Ruiz Soler
Lighting Design: Jackie Shemesh
Set and Costume design: KASPERSHOPHIE
Performance: Charlotte Mclean and Eleanor Sikorski
Co-writers: Charlotte Mclean, Eleanor Sikorski, Eva Recacha
Dramaturg: Simon Ellis
Production Manager: Emma Wenlock-Bolt
Producer: Johnny O’Reilly
Sound artist and composer
Paso was a barefoot spatial sound experience that remembered the chalk land bridge that once connected Britain to France until its destruction due to a catastrophic flood due to climate change 450,000 years ago. It was a crucial migration route that brought the first land creatures, including the first early humans, into Britain. The collapse of the landbridge was Brexit 1.0 and created Britain as the island we know it today.
Participants were invited to take off their shoes, put of a pair of headphones that know your location in the space and walk barefoot over a large rectangular expanse of soil. As you cross the landscape, you encounter areas with different sounds and underfoot temperature transporting you through the history of the land bridge and the animals that inhabited it.
The space was dimly lit by ground level light constantly fluctuating in intensity and colour and there were sections of the ground that were heated from beneath.
We designed Paso as a sensual, non-human-centred storytelling experience, in which people could slow down, attend to their senses of listening and touch, and imagine the possibility that the most solid landmarks that furnish our reality will disappear.
The exhibition is intended to be a friendly space, designed for blind, visually-impaired and sighted visitors alike, and adaptable to access needs.
Collaboration with William Fairbrother
Lighting Desing: Seth Rook Williams
Photos and film: Carlos Jimenez
VR and unity support: Antoine Hacheme
Modular synths: Jon Hawkens
Technical support: Ed Kashinsky
Expanded choreography advisor: Lola Maury
Disability consultant: Maria Oshodi
Lighting designer: Seth Rook Williams
Audience experience consultant: Dr Cecilia Wee
Geologist and landbridge expert: Professor Sanjeev Gupta
Photos and film: Carlos Jimenez
Paso was produced by Lighthouse, supported by Arts Council England and Re-Imagine Europe. Lighthouse is part of Re-Imagine Europe, which is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. Re-Imagine Europe is initiated by Sonic Acts (NL) and coordinated by Paradiso (NL) in collaboration with Elevate Festival (AT), Lighthouse (UK), Ina GRM (FR), Landmark / Bergen Kunsthall (NO), A4 (SK), Disruption Network Lab (DE), Ràdio Web MACBA (ES), Urban Paradoxes (NL) and Kontejner (HR). The exhibition has been realised with the support of Arts Council England and Fabrica.
Collaboration with William Fairbrother.
Video and Images from an early 2019 R&D.
Photo Credit: Carlos Jimenez