To Speak Light Pours Out

Kate McIntosh
Performance, 2020

a project by Kate McIntosh
in collaboration with Ghyslaine Gau, Arantxa Martinez, Anja Müller, Stina Fors
light design Minna Tiikkainen
sound design Stefan Schneider
stage realisation & studio assistance Anda Skrejane
music composition Katharina Ernst, Beatrice Graf
text by or inspired by a.o. Season Butler, Jo Randerson, Rebecca Tamás, Bek Coogan, Paul B. Preciado, Tim Etchells, Astrid Korporaal, Elders of the Hopi Nation, Seloua Luste Boulbina, Alice MacKenzie, Ebba Petrén
artistic advice Tim Etchells, Sarah Parolin

production direction Sarah Parolin
light, sound, stage direction Michele Piazzi
technical support Hanna Kritten Tangsoo
administration Laura Deschepper
cooks Hìla Lahav, Silvia Feliziani, Wim May

a production by S P I N vzw
coproduced by Kaaitheater (Brussels), Vooruit Kunstencentrum (Gent), BUDA Kunstencentrum (Kortrijk), PACT Zollverein (Essen), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt Am Main), Residenz Schauspiel Leipzig (Leipzig), Black Box teater (Oslo), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), Rosendal Teater (Trondheim), SPRING (Utrecht), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna)
funded by Vlaamse Overheid, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie
supported by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ Coproduction Fund for Dance, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media
residency Tanzfabrik (Berlin), Centrale Fies_Passo Nord (Dro)

thanks to Hans Bryssinck, Diederik Peeters, Laura Deschepper, Elisa Demarré, Josh Rutter, Gäel Santisteva, Lazara Rosell Albear, Pieter Ampe, Ntando Cele, Jonathan Bepler, Steve Heather, Andy Wright, Marc Lohr, Kazehito Seki, Fritz Welch, Daria Gatti, Daniel Blanga Gubbay, Daniela Bershan, Valentina Desideri, Emily Beausoleil, Jacopo Lanteri, Lola Rubio, public in private studio (Berlin)

S P I N is structurally supported by BUDA Kunstencentrum for the period 2017 – 2021

photo: Rolf Arnold

"They say when we’re all in the same space listening together, our heartbeats might end up synchronizing. But our breathing will not, our breathing will stay polyrhythmic.
They say listening might be the most complex of all human behaviours.
To listen is a state of tension.
Listening across difference.
Listening further than you can see."*


Mixing the work of different writers, composers and performers, To Speak Light Pours Out is a performance that immerses the audience in a powerful listening space; creating a sonic world that channels the energy of rhythms, voices, texts, and their meanings.
With the physical pleasure and disorientation of polyrhythmic beats and the raw energy of voices that layer up sonic and spoken images, the tensions are both political and poetic, liberating and activating.

To Speak Light Pours Out is an invitation to enjoy the sharp energies of positive disturbance and resolute possibility, a shout-out to the lust for transformation, resistance, and new shapes of being.


"...like everyone, everywhere, was getting what they wanted."**

"She pushes her fingers into the mud and listens as hard as she can,
until sometimes the mud makes its way up her throat and out of her mouth.
The words are wet and rich and full of power. Words that makes worlds.
To name, to change, to strange."***

*performance quote: Kate McIntosh
**performance quote: Rebecca Tamás
***performance quote: Rebecca Tamás, Kate McIntosh


Read more about the texts in the performance here


What audiences and critics say:

"...taking the audience into the borderland of a forest rave, a club, a literary salon and a dream."
- Peeter Kormašov, Eesti Päevaleht, 28.08.21

“The strength of the performance is that all the elements are constantly in service of ideas about the richness of new and different perspectives. The players draw on nine different texts, written by or inspired by interesting feminist thinkers, playwrights and poets. Meanwhile, they accompany the text with conventional and unconventional forms of percussion and singing: from drum solos to the dragging of drums across the floor, from an a capella duet to a long-drawn-out primal scream. The pleasure that the performers create in their collective creative urge is contagious, and invites the audience to detach themselves from the 'old world' and embrace the unlimited possibilities of 'new worlds'.”
- Marijn Lems, Theaterkrant, 29.10.21

"McIntosh's works are often highly interactive and immersive performances that physically engage the audience in an elegant and subtle way. Her performances explore and celebrate the co- presence of people and their interdependence and are extremely political in this regard. Their idea of a fundamentally and inescapably interconnected humanity goes hand in hand with an idea of community that defies simplifications and codifications, allows differences, is aware of its margins and does not seek consensus and compromise.
In “To Speak Light Pours Out” the audience is again immersed in the role of the spectator. In a sequence of musical episodes, an acoustic space opens up, in which a kinesthetic experience is created primarily through rhythms. This soundscape as well as sung and spoken texts and the physicality of the performers move between playful and direct, gentle and confrontational."

- Thomas Frank, artistic director Residenz, Schauspiel Leipzig.


Full length performance video:
& video interviews (courtesy of Radialsystem, and PACT Zollverein):

photo: Rolf Arnold
photo: Christian Schuller
photo: Christian Schuller
photo: Rolf Arnold
©Daria Gatti

Past

28.10.2022

Festival Kondenz, Belgrade (RS)

22-24.05.2022

Wiener Festwochen, Vienna (AT)

01-02.04.2022

Kaaitheater, Brussels (BE)

30.03.2022

Voo?uit, Gent (BE)

19-20.03.2022

Rosendal Teater, Trondheim (NO)

15-16.03.2022

BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen (NO)

11-12.03.2022

Black Box teater, Oslo (NO)

26-27.02.2022

Radialsystem, Berlin (DE)

27-28.10.2021

SPRING, Utrecht (NL)

27-28.08.2021

SAAL Biennale, Tallinn (EST)

01.07.2021
Concert Version

Centrale Fies, Dro (IT)

26-27.06.2021
Concert Version

Il Mattatoio, Roma (IT)

29-31.05.2021

Wienerfestwochen, Vienna (AT) - cancelled

12-15.05.2021

Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt am Main (DE) - cancelled

05-06.05.2021

Vooruit, Gent (BE) - rescheduled to 2022

30-01.05.2021

Kaaitheater, Brussels (BE) - rescheduled to 2022

12-13.03.2021

Black Box teater, Oslo (NO) - rescheduled to 2022

09-10.03.2021

BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen (NO) - rescheduled to 2022

04-05.03.2021

Rosendal Teater, Trondheim (NO) - rescheduled to 2022

24-31.10.2020
16-17.10.2020