What matters? - David Harradine and Sam Butler

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This text was written for a presentation about Fevered Sleep that was part of Caravan Assembly, a curated gathering of performance makers and international programmers and producers around a theme of socially engaged art, that happened in Brighton in May 2022.

The text explores Fevered Sleep’s approach to working with people, suggesting how conversation is at the heart of our work.

Where are you?

I’m eating lunch in a room in a theatre, talking with people about how we’re ageing

I’m sitting at a shop counter, talking about grief

I’m walking in a park, and we’re listening to the light

I’m in the day room of a care home, exploring touch

I’m in a school hall, talking about the weather

I’m on a clifftop, talking about home

I’m in a library, talking about forests

I’m running a market stall, talking about family

I’m standing in a rehearsal studio, talking about trust

Who are you with?

And what are you talking about?

I’m with a 3-year old child, talking about darkness

I’m with a vet, talking about empathy

I’m with a surgeon, talking about time

I’m with a park ranger, talking about loss

I’m with an 85-year old woman, talking about the importance of parties

I’m with a teacher, talking about care

I’m with a scientist, talking about dance

I’m with a group of girls, talking about power

Where are you?

I’m in Middlesbrough, in Captain Cook Shopping Centre, in a small shop that we’ve taken over for This Grief Thing.  I’m sitting in a circle with seven other people, and we’re talking about grief.  I listen and I guide but I try not to talk. I try to make space for the words and the tears and the silence and the laughter and the witnessing and the awkwardness and the release.  I say, “all emotions are welcome here”.  I say, “there is no hierarchy of grief”.  I say, “you can talk or you can just listen; you can share or you can learn”.  I say, “I’m an artist, not a counsellor” and I say, “and that’s important; I’m just here like you, to talk, to listen, to learn; I’m not special”.  I ask a question, to start the conversation.  The conversation starts. We listen and we guide and we make space and we witness, and time passes and light fades and we end and we say goodbye and we softly depart.

Who are you with? And what are you doing?

I’m in a studio in Malmö, Sweden with 9 girls and 5 men, on the first day of rehearsals for our show, Men & Girls Dance.  The girls are working alongside the men, learning how to be equal with them, despite their differences of age and experience and training, creating a series of small dance phrases about space, loss and love. They’re talking to each other about someone important to them. They’re making spaces, and closing spaces, they’re moving around each other, they’re unlearning and relearning how to be together.  There’s care.   There’s handing over power.  There’s listening.  There’s seeing and being seen.  There’s working together and eating together and going for a walk together and talking together.  There are tears.  There is friendship. There is love.  There we are, holding a space in which all this can happen.

What matters?

Place matters

People matter

Making a good invitation matters

Taking time matters, not rushing in, not rushing to leave

Listening carefully matters

Art matters

Care matters, taking care, being careful

Decentring ourselves matters

Difference matters, seeing difference matters

Asking the right questions in the right way matters

Asking children matters

The everyday expertise of everybody in everything matters

Being comfortable with not knowing matters

Learning what we need to know through others matters

The process matters

Making a good space matters

Dismantling hierarchies matters

Not exploiting people matters

Small, hidden acts of radical compassion matter

Rage matters

Love matters