Civilisation @ ZOO Southside
Jaz Woodcock-Stewart's Civilisation glimpses a woman in the throes of grief, and acts as an admirable experiment in mundanity
Created by Jaz Woodcock-Stewart, Civilisation glimpses a woman in the throes of grief – the aftermath of a nameless tragedy. The space, complete with a rich, red carpet, a freshly-made bed, and a colourful rack of clothes, looks lived-in. She, in contrast, seems hollowed out: a haunted house of herself.
We glean the events of the narrative-now, and of the tragic events preceding, through a series of well-placed details. A funeral dress and bouquets sit in the background; in the foreground, there is a leaning tower of unopened (and official-looking) envelopes. The weight of this woman’s loss – an unbearable presence forged by an unbearable absence – is felt keenly. It is in the spaces between loud music and silence. It is in the way she watches daytime television in the middle of the night. It’s there when she cooks eggs; it's there when she eats them while watching porn, her expression inscrutable.
Moments like these, peppered throughout, give Civilisation a quiet but wonderful absurdity. Sadly, it is with the addition of three dancers that the stage is crowded out, leaving little room for nuance. Choreographed by Morgann Runacre-Temple, the dancers work to represent the cognitions and the embodied experience of grief. But here, the dancing risks being decorative or misplaced, as if it belongs to a different piece entirely.
It is also unclear whether the dancers are meant to act as an extension of this woman’s grief (their movements are echoes and exaggerations of her own), or if they are intruding upon her grieving. As it is, their presence feels superficial and warrants deeper, more radical direction. Arguably, the setting and props already do the expressive work of the dancers – the same is true of an unanswered phone call or a game of Bop-It. The delicacy is all in the detail.
Though it might not reach fruition, Civilisation is by turns affecting, fragile, and funny. It is an admirable experiment in mundanity: those things we do to get through.
Civilisation, ZOO Southside (Main House), until Aug 28 (not 25), 10.10am, £14-17