Episode 5...
THE QUIXOTIC PULSE
Directed & designed by John O’Hanlon;
Produced by Sally Rew;
Original Soundtrack by dirtybitch.org
3 giant packing cases… handle with care… this way up… cultural cargo… a skyline projected across the stage… sound re-mixed of pre-performance audience conversations and music…
The packing cases glide in a formation dance, lines of text burst from them. Three performers variously emerge; they are sometimes themselves, sometimes Queen Victoria, Victor Hugo and Don Quixote, sometimes somewhere in between: Miss Information, Miss Calculation and Mr Ection.
HamFisted!developed the quixotic pulse in 2004, (with support from Arts Council England, West Midlands), through a series of 3 public events culminating in the premiere of the quixotic pulse at the mac (Birmingham) on 24 September 2004. An audience in excess of 100 gave it an enthusiastic response, and the work is being further developed and honed in preparation for touring in 2005.
Ingredients:
Lentils Patience
All my love Heart
Honesty Permission
Acceptance Every fibre of my being
Kindness My dream of dreams
Thoughtfulness Passion
Holding hands and kissing and never letting go
the quixotic pulse is highly visual and adaptable to different and unconventional performance spaces. The language of the piece is both humorous and sincere; the text is torn this way and that. As the artifice of theatre is exposed, so too is the absurdity of life. the quixotic pulse is accessible, thought provoking, smile inducing, fundamentally optimistic - and not at all pretentious.
The work employs diverse techniques of presentation and engagement – misdirection, humour, disorientation, poetry, mechanical devices, lecture-demonstration, repulsion, insight, coincidence, vulgarity – and includes opportunities for interaction with its audience. The performers are skilled at adapting and developing in response to audience participation.