Double Blind
“Intimacy and violence are tightly woven in this deeply affecting dance piece.”
WORLD PREMIERE SYDNEY FESTIVAL - Carriageworks
January 19 – 24, 2016
“What if internal conflict was made external?” Inspired in part by real-world experiments in the conflict between personal ethics and our obedience to those in a position of authority, Double Blind is brought to life four world-class Australian dancers who turn, vacillate and vibrate, and ultimately bend and break under authority. Double Blind features original composition from internationally acclaimed audio-visual artist Robin Fox, while Stephanie Lake, one of Australia’s most commanding choreographers, interrogates the perils of obedience with electricity, intricacy and grace, fuelled by an intriguing choreographic duality between highly detailed movement and anarchic spontaneity.”
Artist’s note from Stephanie Lake:
Double Blind came from an interest in a conflict between personal ethics or sense of responsibility to society and our obedience to those in a position of authority. Inspired by real-world psychological experiments from the 1960s, Double Blind asks how far one can be pushed to act outside of one’s moral code when instructed.
For me, Double Blind is its own universe – a universe of four – in which different combinations and configurations set a series of consequences in motion. These four are constantly at the whim of each other as well as some other unseen force. It’s as if they are subjects in one another’s experiment, as well as mine. At times funny, at others dark, Double Blind uses a rhythmically charged and precise choreographic language on the one hand and is recklessly spontaneous on the other. This beautiful brutality fuels the work.