A brief odyssey into the questions we ask ourselves and the answers we rarely hear.

“INSIDE” was a devised live performance about the answers we seek but rarely hear. Using textual prompts, an ephemeral sculpture of onion bags, and a composition played at three different speeds with different sets of lyrics, as well as an interactive installation, the piece transformed the space and asked, What is the generosity you feel in this moment?

The purpose of the work was to make basic human connection in the room among the audience members, and between the audience and the performer. The context the work responded to is a focus on self-help and achievement language that falls empty. It is about these brief moments when you awake to a culture that is beyond obsessing with these things but lack them instead. It might be because there is a dragon in front of you. How do you live with a dragon, or a sense of your own mortality? The answer in the performance was multi-layered. First, and simply, breathe. Second, pass your breath (inside a balloon) to those near you, and receive the breath (in balloons) from others. And third, bearing witness to an intimate performance with unexpected live sculpture enveloping the space.

Engineered by Tusia, “INSIDE” was a collaborative narrative experience based on prompts (Andrea) that encompassed performance (Tusia), live sculpture (Molly), and music (Miłosz). The prompts were displayed during the performance (Molly). The devised, interactive narration and actions (Tusia) transformed the space as it was being transformed into a live sculpture (Molly and Tusia). The twenty minute story was punctuated by an original composition (Miłosz) that was played at three different speeds and included lyrics (Andrea, Tusia). The story’s balance between eternal time and pop-culture present is a recurring theme for Andrea, and in this project, it was complemented by (however different) Molly and Tusia’s pop-culture-adjacent aesthetics. During the performance Tusia played at different speeds a composition Milosz prepared for her previously. She also set lyrics to it, and the evening closed with a sing-along to a recording by a septuagenarian classical singer.