We are Iridescent

 We are complicated.We have better instinct.We are left out.We want not to be blamed.We can hear you talking about us. Exploring the nature of existence for a child at this time can be a bewildering, joyful and sometimes a painful thing. Our first 2 sets of research workshops began as an invitation for child participants to be in a space with us firstly at dance4 in Nottingham and shortly after, at Dartington.We talked together, wrote together, questioned and interrogated, played of course, moved, danced and shouted. We handed them a video camera and they directed our gaze to what they wanted us to see. And they crowded the lens, performed for each other and themselves and anyone who cared, they didn't care.Then they looked directly into a camera held by another child, and (under our direction this time) relished the opportunity to not do or show happy but to just be, a human animal, that was new, and that was hard at first and strange, and then so easy. That felt radical and political. Look at us, we're looking at you.We can see you.We are here.We are not finished. I think we're on to something.