Nobody’s Everybody’s Business is an insight into us as temporary and permanent collectives and communities, the power of us in groups, alongside the notion and embodiment of change. The work draws upon past and present acts of activism, combining them and switching in between, without zooming in on any particular movement. Each element of the performance stands as a symbol that can be read in direct or indirect ways, bringing attention to the importance of us as a society, community and collective.
Performers: Ilaria Ignesti, Paula Jankowska, Roberto Cherubini, Ting-Ning Wen
Design: Jee Hyeon Rosa Wang
Sound: Sample sounds of Nicola L. Hein overlapped with live recording of Notes for Change, soundscape by Lier Chen overlapped with clips from Distraction Pieces podcast and interviews with Julian Neuhauser and Savannah Whaley
Production and lighting: Bernadette Ward
Premiered: 19/07/2019 Bonnie Bird Theatre, London
It successfully negotiated the transformation of the theatre space, the splitting of conventional viewpoints and the rearranging of how the performance was encountered. The durability and yet the sense of the transitional in the set up, the focus upon interaction and encounter with objects, and the everyday, gave an unusual focus and purposeful direction to the performers’ action and intention and, inclusively, to the whole work itself. This was further highlighted by the excellent use of expanded writing and notes gathered on banners and wall spaces, both seen as evidence of material gathered from earlier iterations of the process; and, as design activism taking on a practical role in expressing something of a manifesto of protest.
