INTERMISSION

REFLECTIONS BY SHEILA

‘I'm trying to remember why the urge to write something about Intermission seemed so important back in April. I'm trying to remember what I had wanted to write. In fact, sitting here now I'm trying to remember the show. The show that seemed so urgent at the time. Those words that needed to be communicated. There. Then. If you asked me to perform it now I couldn't. And it’s only August.

A few weeks after the performances at Soho, you and I talked about tipping points, those moments of oscillation, where something transforms. Becomes something other. When new ideas topple us over, when heads become heavy. When weight shifts.

Falling into bed the night after the first performance as my head hit the pillow I remember thinking profoundly “I have to write about that”. I have to share that. I was thinking about a specific element of the piece - the moment where my head is submerged in water, when I am experiencing something totally visceral and apart from the audience. Alone.

Strange to dip one's head into a bucket, in the middle of a performance. To become submerged, to be removed from the act of performing – no that's not true – to be removed from the 'awareness' of one's performing, because the experience I was involved in (head dunked in water) was more than the experience of performing, just for that moment.

And there was no sound.

Just muffled noise.

I remember finding that shocking. Being under the water. 3 or 4 times. Submerged. Cold, wet, exhilarated, confused. I remember thinking, what am I doing? I'm not in control. I don't feel in control of this moment. What are the audience doing while I am doing this? What are they seeing? What are they thinking? What are they feeling? I'm not in control. This moment. This is everything. This represents it all. A sensible reaction to an overwhelming world. A world full of words, opinions, pushes, pulls. Its too much, and this is what I am left with. A wet head. A choice has been made here, a decision has been taken to perform this, yet it feels totally out of control. I am out of control.

Here is a list of the subjects we were trying to tackle:

Abortion, Ageing, America, Army, Birth, Cannibalism, Death, Death Penalty, Drinking, Drugs, Eating, Environment, Euthanasia, Fame and Celebrity, Family, Illness, Immigration, Language, Love, Masturbation, Monarchy, Money, Pedophilia, Penetration, Pleasure, Police, Politics, Pornography, Prostitution, Queen and Country, Racism, Religion, Sex, Sexuality, Shopping, Slavery, Smoking, Sport, Suicide, War.

We had originally thought of Intermission as a kind of Soapbox, a chance to get some things off our chest. To talk plainly, to say what mattered, to stop dodging the bullet, to say it like it is. We talked a lot about the Freedom of Speech and set ourselves a rule based task:

Try to write five things you think about each of the subjects. / Try to write three things that are controversial or contentious about the subjects. / Find out one fact about each area. / Write from a truthful place. / Each entry should be a minimum of three sentences and no more than half a page. / These texts will not be shared until we all get together. / This project requires risk from us all and so is strictly confidential and not to be discussed outside the three of us at all.

In the end it was mostly me who ended up trawling through our Daily Mail style list. Who irritated myself with my opinions, who realised that what I thought changed from second to second. Who sat facing myself in the mirror analysing the mass of contradictions we all are. Swaying this way and that.

What do you say when it really matters? When someone is really listening? Properly? How do you shoulder that responsibility? As a writer, an artist, a performer, a company?

These words that come out of mouths mean so much. Have the power to change, to alter, to affect so much.

Tipping Points. To become tipped. Tipping my head into a bucket in order to forget myself. Tipping my head into a bucket in order to change the world.’

• Sheila Ghelani, August 2009