When dance is the primary medium of art you work with, it is almost inevitable to place human stories at the heart of what you do. You constantly work with a body which, without even having to move, will be read and often judged. Historically and often successfully, ballet and other forms of dance have sought to reproduce literature about people’s lives through movement, Romeo & Juliet for example. But dance is also abstract and can help us to be freed of preconceived ideas of what is possible, accepted or assumed about our bodies. Subverting expectations of what and who is being presented onstage can in fact say more about who and what we are as humans. 

As a company, identity is important to us. El and I (the co-directors of Thick & Tight) are queer and often work with people who are queer or marginalised in various ways. Our identity informs our work and the work we make informs who we are. We aim to be accessible and to connect with a breadth of society. We try to put compassion and empathy at the forefront of our artistic practice. What we have found is that empathy for others fosters a deeper appreciation for all forms of life; care, love and respect is boundless. 

Over the years we’ve created multiple performed portraits of famous or infamous people, aiming to frame them in new and fun ways. We started off by pairing unlikely people together, with the aim of exposing and abstracting them in new ways. They included the likes of Franz Schubert & Edith Sitwell, Sigmund Freud & Madonna, Marcel Proust & Derek Jarman, Marilyn Monroe & Princess Diana – and our all-time favourites John Cage & Elaine Paige. We have also created many solos and group works, portraits of people which aim to get to the heart of an aspect of them in 10 minutes or less, for example a ballet where everyone was a Kardashian after the apocalypse. These works have been performed in theatres, festivals, gay bars, clubs, community centres, hospitals and schools. We mix dance with lip-syncing, drag and mime…high doses of camp all round! We always aim to entertain with our work, engaging a broad spectrum of people in dance. Our humour is about punching up, never down. 

A couple of years ago, we asked ourselves if we could make similar portraits of non-human life forms. One provocation we kept returning to was “can we make lichen camp”? What came out of these enquiries was our latest show ‘Natural Behaviour’, a series of portraits of human and non-human life-forms. These included lesbian seagulls, a blade of grass, the dust in Quentin Crisp’s room and two flies on the wall of Katy Perry’s spaceship. Placing these forms of life next to pieces about humans helped us understand something more profound about what is means to be human or even just to be alive. 

We engaged with close to 2000 people during the creation of these works through workshops, lectures, walks, bird watching, writing and through sensory intelligence. Here are two examples of this work: 

• Thanks to Norfolk & Norwich Festival, we were able to work with the Queer Birders of Norfolk (pictured below), where we joined birdwatching sessions out in nature led by the group. We then created a work about the loss of different bird species in the UK, partly based on the conversations and movement shared in workshops with the birders. 
• I worked with Entelechy Arts in the development of a solo about the link between queerness and disability. Part of the research with this group was based in the communication about identity found solely in movement, shared between people with and without hearing and/or sight.  

Here are some thoughts I had when creating Natural Behaviour: All life compliments, supports and sustains itself because it co-exists. Empathy and understanding for others’ differences and needs isn’t just a human trait, it is innate in all life. We strongly reject the pyramid scheme of life on earth where we keep placing ourselves at the apex, the sharp end of destruction. Denial and mistrust of nature, and the nature of others, is interlinked and doubly damaging. People who consider the nature and needs of lichen for example, might very well be good-natured in other aspects of their life. By viewing others (human or not) as our equals, we are far more likely to muddle along together better and live happier lives individually too.  

Many of the works in Natural Behaviour were designed by Tim Spooner, who is also presenting work as part of N&N Festival with his show Matter Era (pictured below). Do check it out if you can. Tim is the best of the best!